


Better Than My Best Plans

by perca_beths



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mortal, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kid Fic, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy, What else is new, annabeth has walls and percy is a simp, i genuinely could not be stopped i'm sorry, strangers to lovers to friends to lovers again maybe? lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perca_beths/pseuds/perca_beths
Summary: He wasn’t even supposed to spend the night - she’d told him as much in the morning as she asked him to leave, didn’t even offer him an empty 'maybe I’ll see you around, sometime.' Just a one time thing, a clean break. But a few hours later, she’d gone in search of breakfast and noticed the bright yellow sticky note above her doorknob, with his full name and phone number scrawled across the middle and a smiley face in one corner.She rolled her eyes, dropped it onto the stack of papers on her drafting table, and told herself she would throw it away later.But - for some reason that Annabeth can’t quite rationalize - she never did.Funny how things work out.---(The unexpected pregnancy AU no one asked for.)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 340
Kudos: 470





	1. Chapter 1

**(one)**

Annabeth grips the mug of tea she won’t be drinking and takes a deep breath. She can do this. Not that she really has a choice, but still. She can.

Hot Barcade Guy - _Percy_ , she corrects herself, catches her eye from the counter where he’s waiting for his own drink. Those sea-green eyes she hadn’t quite been able to forget the shade of crinkle as he smirks at her.

She snaps her eyes back to her tea - she hates tea, she’d just remembered too late that she’s not supposed to be drinking coffee - and tries not to feel guilty. Because while Hot Barcade Guy ( _Percy, Percy, Percy,_ she smacks herself mentally) has a great smile - a little lopsided, maybe, but sweet - he won’t be smiling much longer. Once he joins her at the table things will probably flip pretty fast. 

She wonders why he thinks she called this morning. She’d made it abundantly clear she wasn’t planning on seeing him again. Although, he was the one who left a sticky note with his phone number on the inside of her front door that morning as she not-so-subtly kicked him out, so. Maybe he was optimistic.

She’d met him while she was out celebrating her birthday with Piper at The Lotus - which is Annabeth’s favorite bar because it’s full of old arcade games, and the tickets can be exchanged for drinks, and she’s competitive enough that she doesn’t care when Piper inevitably takes too many shots and has to be carried home by her boyfriend before midnight.

Which was exactly what had just happened when she spotted him across the bar - all tan skin and broad shoulders under a dark blue T-shirt and those striking green eyes. She watched his friend give him a one armed hug and head toward the door, leaving him alone with a pile of arcade tokens, and made her decision: downed her shot, walked right up and offered to help him spend them. 

She beat him at racing, and air hockey, and zombie shooting, and ski-ball - and although he never seemed remotely upset about losing, she could tell he had never intentionally let her win, not once. 

(Annabeth hates it when men “let” her win.)

He laughed after losing yet another game, running his fingers through the unruly black curls on his head, and suddenly all she’d wanted to do was take him back to her apartment and mess up his hair properly, herself. So she did.

Because while Annabeth has a pretty strict no-dating policy, she’s never been opposed to the occasional one night stand. And that’s all he was. The best one night stand she’d ever had, but a one night stand all the same. (She’d nicknamed him Hot Barcade Guy so she could tell Piper about him the next day - because she’d really _liked_ him, and liking him was dangerous, but pretending not to remember his name was safe.)

He wasn’t even supposed to spend the night - she’d told him as much in the morning as she asked him to leave, didn’t even offer him an empty _maybe I’ll see you around, sometime._ Just a one time thing, a clean break. But a few hours later, she’d gone in search of breakfast and noticed the bright yellow sticky note above her doorknob, with his full name and phone number scrawled across the middle and a smiley face in one corner. 

She rolled her eyes, dropped it onto the stack of papers on her drafting table, and told herself she would throw it away later.

But - for some reason that Annabeth can’t quite rationalize - she never did.

Funny how things work out.

The clink of Percy setting his own mug on the other side of the table pulls her from her thoughts. “This is a nice place.” 

“Yeah, uh, my office is near here. I come on my lunch sometimes.”

“Architect, right?” he asks over the rim of his mug.

Of course he remembers.

Annabeth gives him a tight smile and a nod before turning her gaze back down to her tea, wishing for the hundredth time that it was coffee. 

Right. Best to just rip off the band aid. She raises her chin.

“I’m pregnant.” 

No point in sugar coating it.

It’s a good thing she waited until he’d set his mug down to say the words, because judging by the way he completely freezes, he probably would have dropped it. A few seconds stretch excruciatingly as he blinks at her, mouth slightly open as if he’s been hit over the head.

“You’re the father...obviously….”

He doesn’t move. Might as well lay it all out now. She takes another deep breath.

“I’ve thought about it a lot, and...I’m keeping it. That’s the decision. You can be involved if you want to be, but I don’t - I don’t need you. I mean, you don’t owe me anything.” 

He still hasn’t moved. 

“Percy?”

His eyebrows scrunch together, but that’s the only indication he’s still got brain function. She’d been ready for him to be surprised, or disbelieving, or even angry - but this? What is she supposed to do if he won’t talk to her?

“Please say something.”

He opens his mouth and closes it again, but no sound comes out.

“Okay, uh,” She continues, desperately trying to keep her voice even. His lack of reaction is making the edges on her nerves razor sharp. “Look, I know this is a lot. I understand if you’re not ready. Or if you don’t want to be a part of this. And of course you don’t have to decide right now, but I - at some point before it’s born I will need to know if you’re in or not. So just, think about it, okay? I won’t blame you for taking the out. I just...I can do this, on my own. If you - if you don’t want -”

The end of her sentence is lost as something in her chest closes in on itself, and she’s seven years old again - walking home all those times her dad forgot to pick her up from school, with nothing but the slap of her shoes against the pavement to keep her company. Unable to stop knowing that even though he’d kept her, he certainly never _wanted_ her.

And okay, this situation isn’t ideal. Having a baby at 25 with a stranger wasn’t part of her plan, or the back-up plan, or even the worst case scenario contingency plan. It’s crazy, and it’s going to completely derail her career, and her life, and change everything _,_ and yet -

She _wants_ it.

If Percy doesn’t...then she doesn’t need him. 

(She just hadn’t been prepared for it to hurt, like this.)

Realistically, Percy’s only been frozen for maybe two minutes, since she dropped the bomb on him, but it feels like years. A wave of panic rolls through her as her unfinished sentence hangs in the air between them. Tears are burning at the back of her eyes. It’s too much. She can’t do this.

“Okay,” she chokes out, standing and grabbing her purse off the back of her chair with shaking hands. “Okay...just -” Her mind is too frenzied to form another complete sentence.

She’d considered that he wouldn’t want to be involved. Had told herself to expect it. And yet, apparently some stupid, delusional part of her had hoped a little bit anyway. And she’s not sure what to do with that information, or the chasm that’s starting to split open in her chest, or the way Percy’s face is still frozen in shock. So she does what she does best.

She runs.

She only makes it about a half a block away before she hears it - the door to the café opening with a bang, Percy shouting, “Annabeth!”

She stops, despite the panicked voice in her head screaming at her to put as much distance as she possibly can between them, because she supposes she owes him that much. She hears him running to catch up, and then suddenly he’s in front of her, his expression still unreadable. 

“Hey, hey, I’m so sorry, I just -” He pauses, his eyes flitting all over her face. “Just, wait a second. Please.”

Annabeth wipes a stray tear from her cheek with her palm. She can’t decide if she wants to yell at him, or apologize for storming off, or keep running so she doesn’t have to hear him say she’s on her own, so she just nods.

“Thank you,” he exhales, relieved. Both hands run through his hair, making it stick up even more wildly than before. “So, uh - I’m gonna be a dad?”

“I mean, that’s up to you but...technically, yes.”

He breathes out one wild, incredulous laugh, his gaze leaving her face and looking off into the distance above her head.

“Okay,” He says after a minute, meeting her eyes again. His voice is less shaky, now. “Okay. I’m in.”

Her brain snags on the certainty in his voice. He can’t - he can’t mean it. 

She can feel all of the anxiety she’s been holding onto since she saw that little pink plus sign clawing its way up her throat. “Percy - you don’t have to say that just to say it. I’m serious, you need to really think about this. This isn’t just like a few years, this is a person, depending on you their _whole life_ \- ”

“I know it is,” he cuts her off before she can spiral any further, places one warm hand gently on her arm. “I - I know you don’t know me very well, and I - it’s not like, the best circumstance but...I mean it. You won’t have to do this on your own.”

Right. He says that now, but - 

“Hey. Annabeth.” He continues, bending his head down a little bit so that she has to look him in the eye, as if he can tell, somehow, that she doesn’t believe him. “I mean it. I, uh -” he swallows. “I never met my dad. He left before I was born. I wouldn’t...I’m not doing that to my own kid. I’m in.”

Oh, God, she really doesn’t know anything about him, does she? She doesn’t know about his family, doesn’t know his middle name, doesn’t know how to tell if this is a lie. She’s in so far over her head, and so is he, and there’s no way she can trust that he means it, and yet - 

She wants to.

More tears that she’s helpless to stop are falling down her cheeks, and before she can figure out what to say she’s being pulled into his chest, his arms wrapping snugly around her shoulders. 

He still smells good. Like the ocean.

It feels so _nice_ , she can’t help the sob that escapes her throat. Her arms reach up to wrap around his waist all on their own, and his grip tightens just slightly around her, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on her shoulders. Maybe he is still a complete stranger, but after spending the last week so terrified and so, so alone - it’s nice. It’s just _nice_ to be held the way he’s holding her - like she matters, and she’s safe, and it’s okay that she’s in the middle of the street, sobbing into his shirt because these stupid pregnancy hormones keep making her cry over nothing.

“I’m in.” he says again, and she feels it rumble in his chest. “I’m all in.”

Well, maybe it’s not nothing.

She presses her face further into his shirt. “Okay.” 

After what’s entirely too long - to hug, to cry, to block the middle of the sidewalk the way they are - she takes a step back. “Sorry,” she says, wiping her face again. “Hormones.”

He smiles, that sweet lopsided grin she actually kind of missed. “Can we talk? Like, go back to the coffee shop?”

After the dramatic exit she just made? “God, no.”

“Okay.” He’s still smiling, softer now. “Then can I walk with you, for a bit?”

Part of her wants to say no. He could still change his mind at any moment, could disappear, or be a terrible father, or any of the hundred other scenarios she’s been mentally preparing for. Probably better to keep her distance, to draw the line now. But it’s hard to worry too much when he’s looking at her like this, with this totally open expression and that soft little smile.

And, well, he says he’s all in - and for the sake of her own sanity, Annabeth decides to let herself believe him. At least for the next hour.

She nods.

\---

He’s quiet, for a while, as they walk, continuing in the direction Annabeth had been going. She doesn’t have to be anywhere for a few hours, but it’s a nice day, for August. Still early enough that the sun hasn’t started baking New York into the unbearably hot, hazy mess it will be this afternoon. So she just sets a leisurely pace and waits for Percy to say something as their shoulders brush against each other every few steps. The silence isn’t quite so unbearable, out here. She can give him a minute to think.

She can’t help but sneak a few glances at him when he’s not looking, though. And he looks good, black baseball tee that he fills out nicely, dark jeans. The bottom edge of a tattoo she knows he has on the inside of his forearm poking out under the sleeve of his shirt. She wouldn’t be surprised to see him ride off on a skateboard. She’d forgotten, between kicking him out that morning and him chasing her out of the coffee shop, how attractive he is.

She’d really liked him.

If things were different - if _she_ were different - maybe she would have called him the next day, done things in the right order. Let him buy her dinner or take her mini-golfing, or one of those other unrealistically precious things that only seemed to happen to girls in movies, but not to her. And he would have walked her home, and kissed her on her doorstep, and she would have trusted him to stay when he said he would.

But that’s not how the world really works. Anything like that...it can’t happen. Especially not now. Not when she’s not the only person who would be broken when he left. 

\---

“So, okay. Wow.” He starts, finally, pulling her out of her head. “I - how are you feeling?”

“Exhausted, mostly.”

He shoots her a sympathetic look. “How long have you known?”

“I took a test at home last weekend.”

“Did you freak out, too? Or am I the only one?”

“I may have freaked out a little bit.” She assures him. It’s an understatement, she knows. “But I had all week. I think I’m getting used to the idea, now.”

He considers this for another half a block. 

“So you won’t kill me if I admit I’m actually a little excited? Is it weird that I’m excited?”

Annabeth wonders if every other sentence Percy says will continue to be the absolute last thing she expects. “No, it’s - it’s not weird.”

The grin he gives her feels like a ray of sunlight straight to her heart.

She smiles back at him, feeling lighter than she’s felt all week. It’s like they left the version of herself that broke down crying in the middle of the sidewalk behind - every step they take away from that spot makes her feel better, calmer, happier.

The sidewalk is crowded suddenly with a group of people walking the opposite way, and she feels Percy’s fingertips rest lightly on the small of her back while they maneuver through the crowd. 

Something about that makes her feel calmer and happier, too.

“I’ve always wanted kids, you know...someday.” Percy continues when they have the sidewalk more or less to themselves again. 

“Yeah...this probably isn’t the way you imagined it happening, right?”

He shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t have anything _planned_ …but I guess not.”

“I take it you’re not really the planning type?”

“Definitely not,” he says, chuckling, “I’ve kind of given up on it. The way my life has gone so far...Easier to just roll with it. Are you the _planning type_?” 

It’s such an understatement, Annabeth wants to laugh. She wants to tell him that _rolling with it_ is so completely opposite of the way she operates that it’s almost hysterical. She wants to tell him about the five different brands of pregnancy test she purchased, the eight adoption agency websites she had read through, the pros and cons lists she had written, and rewritten, and finally thrown away when she couldn’t rationalize the fact that none of the cons had seemed to matter to her. Wants to pull up the to-do list she's typed out in her phone, show him that she’s currently working on Step Three: Tell Percy, just to see if it would make him laugh. 

She wants to thank him, for chasing her out of that coffee shop. 

“I am,” is all she ends up saying, though. The rest of it gets caught in her throat.

Percy hums. “I’m really not surprised.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yeah, I bet you have your whole life planned out.”

That makes her laugh, a little. “I do. Or, I did.”

“Were kids part of your plan?”

“Honestly….No.” His eyebrows raise up in the middle apologetically for a second before she continues. “But, then I found out about this, and...I don’t know. I tried to talk myself into one of the other options, but I just couldn’t do it.”

It’s something Annabeth has been struggling to put into words for days, the way she just... _wants_ this baby, despite all reason and logic. But he nods, with his eyes lit up and a tiny smile that makes her think he gets it, anyway. 

They walk in a comfortable silence for a bit before he speaks again. “Have you gone to the doctor yet?”

She shakes her head. “I have an appointment Tuesday.”

“Okay,” He looks down at his shoes with his eyebrows scrunched together for a second. “I could, uh, I could come with? I mean, if it’s cool with you.”

“Oh, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that.”

“I know. Is it okay if I want to?”

Again - it makes no sense, but he seems genuine. Not that she trusts herself to spot a lie, anymore, but still. She opens her mouth to decline, because really, she’s gone to every other appointment by herself for years now, but...maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to have someone there. For once. For _this._ “Yeah, you can want to.”

“And do _you_ want me to come?” 

She can’t stop her lips from breaking out into a smile. “I do.”

He gives her another warm grin as well. “Then I’m there.”

“Okay, I’ll uh, I’ll text you the info.”

“Okay.”

“So...not what you were expecting when I called this morning, right?”

“No.” He chuckles. “But I’m glad you did.”

A flock of pigeons flies up and over the building they’re walking in front of, and she realizes that the crushing weight she’d been carrying on her shoulders all week is gone. She wonders when that happened. 

“Me too.”

\---

They talk a little more, still walking slowly. Asking each other questions that they probably should have covered the night they met, but didn’t because they were too busy ripping each other’s clothes off. She learns he is a marine biologist (although what he actually _does_ is a question saved for another day) that he’s just one month younger than her (his birthday was earlier this week, actually), that he lives alone, had a roommate until recently (Grover, who had dragged him out to the barcade that night they met). He remembered her saying she’s an architect, but she tells him a little more about her job, and about her roommate, Piper.

Soon enough, the sun is able to reach over the buildings around them, and Annabeth really has to get going, to meet said roommate for a yoga class she’d been forced to sign up for. Percy walks her to the subway entrance, and he leans in for another hug at the top of the steps. 

“Thank you for telling me.” He says softly, his breath warm on her ear. She just nods against his shoulder and pulls him a little bit closer, because she can’t trust herself to speak - not when he just seems to _mean it_ so much, not when hugging him feels as good as it does.

“Can I call you, later?” He asks as he steps away.

“Okay.” 

“I have your number, now.” 

She laughs in spite of herself. “That you do.”

He grins. “Bye, Annabeth.”

“Bye, Percy.”

She watches him walk away for a few seconds, and he only makes it about ten feet before he turns, shouting over the crowd of people with his hands cupped around his mouth, “I’m still all in! Text me!”

Maybe she’ll let herself believe him a little bit longer.

\---

She texts him the information on her doctor’s appointment that night, sitting on the fire escape in her pajamas, watching the last few rays of sunlight turn the sky pink. 

Her phone rings two minutes later.

“Hello.”

 _“Hey,_ ” He responds. _“Is now a good time?”_

“Yeah,” She leans her head back to rest on the brick wall behind her, tries to force the butterflies in her stomach to fade away. He said he’d call, and then he did. It shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is.

_“How was your yoga class?”_

“Honestly?”

_“Yes, honestly.”_

“I hate yoga.” She hears him chuckle on the other end of the line. “We just spent so much time meditating. I got yelled at by the instructor for not sitting still enough.”

_“Really?”_

“It was awful. And then she told us to let go of our thoughts, but all I could do was think about how much I hated her.”

_“Is Piper gonna make you go again?”_

“I don’t think so. Piper also got yelled at for talking, so. I think I might be off the hook.”

 _“That’s great.”_ He says, chuckling again. 

“It really is. How was the rest of your day?”

“ _Well, I don’t know if you know this but I got some pretty crazy news this morning. So, I didn’t really have the attention span for anything else. Mostly I walked around. Did a little stress baking when I got home.”_

“Stress baking, huh?”

_“Only a few dozen cookies. It’s fine. I’ll share, if you want.”_

“I could eat a few dozen cookies.” She laughs. “How do you feel now?”

_“Good.”_

“Yeah?” 

_“Yeah - still a little terrified, but, you know - good terrified. I think we can do this.”_

“Me, too.” She says. It’s easier to admit these things, over the phone, with the gentle breeze and the sunset and the sounds of the city all around her. “I should thank you, actually. I was imagining today going much worse.”

_“You were expecting something worse? I basically slipped into a coma.”_

She laughs. “You did have me worried for a minute there.”

_“Percy Goes Catatonic wasn’t one of the reactions you were hoping for?”_

“No.” She admits. “But...after that. You did okay.”

 _“Yeah?”_ There’s something hopeful in his tone, like _okay_ is the greatest compliment, somehow.

“Yeah...I, uh - I’m glad you chased me out of that coffee shop.”

_“Any time.”_

She looks out over the city and smiles, really smiles, because no one can see her. Fuck, she _likes_ him.

 _“So, what was the worst case scenario, for today?_ ” He asks, and she can almost see his eyes sparkling above that trouble maker smirk. 

“Worst case? Hmmm...I guess I was worried you’d be angry, and, I don’t know, throw your coffee at me and storm out.”

He lets out a loud peal of laughter, _(“What soap opera is this?”)_ and maybe this was why she’d kept his number, in some subconscious way. He was funny. Easy to talk to. They just kind of clicked, that night they met. 

If things were different - 

_“So after I throw my scalding hot coffee at you - which is messed up by the way, I’m a little worried about your opinion of me - then do I come back in a different shirt and claim that the guy you were with before was actually my evil twin?_ ”

She gets lost in the conversation for a while, as they trade off hypothetical worst case scenarios that get more and more insane. By the time they’ve reached a version of today where Percy is, in fact, an alien who’s been sent to infect the human race, the sun is fully set and her ribs hurt from laughing.

\---

That night as she lays in bed, she tries to picture the best case scenario for today, which isn’t something she’d really allowed herself to think about. 

But maybe this is it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's been a long time since I've written anything but Percabeth is literally taking over my life so, idk I couldn't stop myself with this one. I have most of this fic finished, so I should be updating pretty regularly if you decide to stay tuned!
> 
> Huge thanks to jainadurron and abbysalcove on tumblr for reading the first draft of my first chapter and hyping me up enough to keep going! 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**(two)**

Annabeth doesn’t typically show people the inside of her uterus on their third time hanging out, but nothing about the way Percy has come into her life has been very typical so far, so he probably doesn’t mind.

It’s awkward, attending a doctor’s appointment with a man who barely qualifies as an acquaintance. Well, maybe acquaintance isn’t quite right either, but Annabeth isn’t sure how she should classify him when she doesn’t know where he went to school or what he does in his free time, and yet she knows what he looks like naked and that he keeps insisting that he’s planning to co-parent with her for the next eighteen years. 

Well, whatever he is, she does have to give him some credit, for today. He’d been on time, hadn’t tried to read her paperwork over her shoulder, had been making an effort to respect her privacy where possible. He even asked some good questions when they met with her doctor, and he'd done it all with that relaxed, happy-go-lucky vibe he always seems to have. 

Annabeth, who had spent all morning at work biting her nails down to stubs, could appreciate the way his easy smiles and stupid jokes seemed to calm everything down.

“And see this, right here?” The ultrasound technician says, pointing at a little white squiggle on the screen. “That’s your baby’s heart.”

She turns a dial somewhere and the  _ schoop schoop schoop  _ of a tiny heartbeat fills the room. Annabeth has known about this baby for a couple of weeks, but now - now it’s  _ real. _ The realization slams into her as she watches the little squiggle pulse in time with the sound.  _ Real, real, real.  _

She feels Percy’s hand slip into hers, fingers lacing together and squeezing tight, and it’s like a fucking moment out of one of those cheesy Hallmark movies Piper is always watching. She takes a quick glance at him - he’s mesmerized too, watching the screen with wide, shining eyes. 

She turns back to the squiggle - the  _ baby,  _ God - and feels a wave of absolute terror wash over her. The fact that this little squiggle will become an actual  _ person  _ that will be hurt if she fucks this up - it feels insurmountable. All of the plans she’d had are basically scrapped, now. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s doing. And yet - 

There’s something else there, too. Possibility. A flash of a little girl with her eyes and Percy’s dark hair. A quiet kind of happiness, burning right into her bones like it might actually stick, this time.

Mixed up, overwhelmed tears start sliding down her cheeks. She registers Percy’s other hand reaching over to brush them away gently, feels warm all over as he presses a kiss to the side of her head. She’s not sure anyone has ever treated her so tenderly, let alone someone she barely knows. But it feels too good not to lean into him, and maybe it’s not such a bad thing to let this moment be good. Maybe she can let herself feel grateful that he’s here. Maybe this moment is in all those Hallmark movies for a reason. 

They get two copies of the sonogram, and she watches Percy tuck his carefully into the pocket of his blue plaid shirt with an awed smile on his face.

\---

Half an hour later, it’s over, and they step back out into the muggy August afternoon with a goodie bag full of vitamins, pamphlets, a fun list of things Annabeth isn’t allowed to do, and a due date of April 3rd. 

They walk aimlessly down the street for a bit before she feels Percy’s shoulder bump into hers. “D’you wanna get some food?” 

It’s a bad idea, probably, to spend any more time with him than absolutely necessary. But...she’d taken the last appointment of the day to miss as little of her work day as possible, so it’s nearing five o’clock, and honestly, she’s starving. It’s just food. It doesn’t have to be a date.

That, she tells herself, is the only reason she agrees. 

\---

Annabeth wants pizza, so they walk a few more blocks to this little hole-in-the-wall place Percy claims is “not the best pizza in New York, but the best we’re gonna get without taking the subway.”

She smiles at the conviction in his voice as they seat themselves at a booth near a window, the afternoon sunlight streaming across the table. “So you must be one of those  _ real  _ New Yorkers.”

“Born and raised.” 

“Ah, explains the rudeness.”

“Ha, ha.” He deadpans. “Where are you from then, if you’re not a  _ real  _ New Yorker who doesn’t know where the best pizza is?”

“I grew up in Virginia, mostly. Then we moved to San Francisco when I was ten.”

“Oh, California Girl, huh?”

“Why do I feel like that’s a bad thing the way you say it?”

He shakes his head with his eyes trained on the menu, a little smile threatening to take over his face. “No, I just - I should have known, with those blonde princess curls.”

She rolls her eyes, already feeling heat creep up her neck as she remembers the way he’d tangled his hands in her ‘princess curls’ the night they met. “Shut up.”

“No really, if I was like, imagining the definition of what a California Girl looks like, it would be you.” He tilts his head and narrows his eyes at her appraisingly before adding, “Well, almost...”

“Mhm, it’s my eyes, right?” He nods, so she continues. “My roommate, Piper, says the same thing. She says I have  _ don’t fuck with me  _ eyes.”

_ (Storm clouds, _ Luke had called them, when she was angry.  _ That look you’ve got makes me think I should run and hide _ .)

“You definitely have  _ don’t fuck with me  _ eyes,” Percy says with a chuckle. “Very intimidating. But, uh, in a good way.”

She raises one eyebrow at him. “You like that I’m intimidating?” She asks flatly. 

He shrugs. “I don’t scare easy.”

She focuses on the menu in front of her, not sure how to interpret his words. He’d said them so simply, like it was nothing.  _ I don’t scare easy. _

“And, uh…” he continues, and she looks up to see that he’s also carefully studying the menu to avoid looking at her, and his cheeks are turning pink. “I think your eyes are really pretty, anyway.” 

His gaze meets hers, then, and she has to bite down on her lip to stop from grinning at the compliment. He might be the most ridiculous person she’s ever met. 

She’s saved from any more of this - whatever this is by the appearance of their server, and their conversation continues easily for a bit after their orders have been put in. He asks her a few more questions about California, and she explains that she had originally moved to the city for college. He lets out a low whistle and an “of course you did” when she tells him she went to Columbia, and she learns that he went to NYU on a swimming scholarship, and graduated as captain of the swim team. 

(She has to pull her hair into a ponytail to stop herself from twirling one curl around her finger while he talks about that one, like she’s fifteen again, because she can’t help but picture him - cutting through the water with the muscles she knows are hiding under his shirt on full display.)

“You know,” she says after they’ve started eating, “I’m not sure I can trust your opinions on pizza now that I know you order yours with  _ pineapple _ on it.”

Percy scoffs. “Okay - says the woman who put extra olives on her half. Is that like a pregnancy craving thing or are you always this weird?”

“Olives on pizza is perfectly normal!”

“Yeah but getting only olives on a pizza is pretty fucking weird.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes, but they both know it’s all for show. And damn, when was the last time she had this much fun talking to someone?

Annabeth’s default setting in any conversation has always been to tease, and push, and argue - which, historically, with new people...isn’t always received very well. But Percy just teases her right back, every time. He never takes her words too seriously, never chastises her for being too harsh. He seems to just  _ get _ her, in a way that so few people in her life ever have. 

(She  _ likes _ him. Probably too much.)

“No really,” He continues, “I’m starting to question your sanity.”

“Well, I did decide to start talking to you...”

He leans back, makes an exaggerated grimace with his hand over his heart. “Okay, okay, you win. You make only good choices. You can have your olives.”

She gives him a smug grin as she reaches for another slice. “Thank you, I will.”

They eat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, and when he speaks again his voice is quieter and much more sincere. “So this is  _ real _ now. April 3rd.”

She meets his eyes and feels a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “April 3rd.”

“Have you told anyone else yet?”

“Not yet. Everything I’ve read says it’s better to wait a bit.”

“Yeah, until the twelfth week, right?” She blinks at him, eyebrows raised in shock. “What? I’ve been known to do a google search once in a while.”

_ Ridiculous. _

“Yes, twelfth week. So, end of September.”

He drops his head into his hands dramatically. “I know it’s for the best but I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“Why?”

“I am  _ terrible _ at keeping secrets,” he groans, “my mom is gonna take one look at me and know I’m hiding something.”

He can’t - this can’t be  _ real,  _ right? Everything about Percy has always felt so genuine, and he seems to be genuine now, too, but - he can’t be.

She searches her gut for that familiar sensation she always had with Luke - that sudden, dropping feeling she got when his smiles were just a little too slick and she knew, deep down, that he was just telling her what she wanted to hear. It’s not there. But she’d believed Luke plenty of times, too, hadn’t she? And Percy saying he’s bad at keeping secrets seems like exactly the thing she wants so badly to believe that she would ignore the evidence, doesn’t it?

But those thoughts are too much to untangle today. Maybe ever.

“Well,” she swallows hard and searches quickly for something normal to say, “if it makes you feel any better Piper is already crazy suspicious. She’s like a bloodhound for this stuff.”

He laughs. “Well then, this month should be really fun for both of us.”

“Bet you crack before I do.”

“Stakes?”

“Loser buys the winner a pizza.”

“What is it with you and pizza today?”

She shrugs. “Pregnant.”

“Okay, okay.” He narrows his eyes and lets out a low breath before reaching over the table to shake her hand. “I’m definitely gonna regret this, but you’re on.”

“Don’t forget the olives when you call in my victory order.”

Another grin splits across his face as he laughs. “I would never.”

\---

He asks if he can walk her home when they’re done, and it’s another bad idea, but like everything else where Percy is concerned she finds herself wanting to say yes anyway. As they step back into the evening air, cooler now that the sun has started to set behind some of the taller buildings, Annabeth can’t help but notice the lightness that seems to have settled in her chest. That, once again, a few hours with him has made her feel about a thousand times better than she had this morning. That he makes it so easy to laugh and forget that her life is a mess for a little while.

She  _ really  _ likes him. Fuck.

The walk back is relaxed. He sets a slow pace, and she falls in step with him because if she’s honest, she doesn’t want this evening to end either. They continue their easy conversation, and she’s still smiling because of something he’s said when they finally reach the stoop of her apartment building.

They stop in front of the steps and she turns to look at him, hands in his pockets, his skin practically glowing under the cotton-candy sky. She can’t seem to make herself look away, so she takes him in for a moment - the way his dark hair is ruffled slightly by the breeze, and those sea-green eyes catch the last few rays of sunlight so beautifully. The tensing of his shoulders as he takes a step closer to her. The way he seems to be drinking in the sight of her, too.

“Thank you, for coming with me today.” she says, and it comes out as a whisper. The air between them is delicate, suddenly, and speaking too loudly might break it.

“Thank you for letting me.” He says, voice just as soft. 

The step she takes forward is automatic, inevitable. His eyes flick down to her lips, and the realization of what’s about to happen sets her skin on fire.

Some quiet, rational part of her brain is begging her to stop this, but it’s drowned out by a much louder voice, one that hasn’t been able to forget the way his skin felt on hers, screaming at her to lean in closer. His breath hitches, and they’re so close now that she can see that the center of his eyes are a little more blue than green, can easily make out the shape of a small scar on his cheekbone. And then he’s leaning in too, bending down to her level, moving so slowly that really, she has a thousand chances to stop him. But she doesn’t.

His lips meet hers, feather light and delicate, and she forgets how to breathe.

Their other kisses, that night they met, had been so much more reckless. She had crashed into him and he had responded with the same level of intensity, hungry and desperate - all teeth and tongues and hands pulling each other impossibly closer. Those had been tidal waves, but this...this is deliberate, soft. The gentle pull of the undertow. The hands that had grasped madly at her hips that night hold her so delicately now, barely touching like he’s holding something breakable. Something precious. 

His fingers trace her jaw, and she lightly grips the front of his shirt with both hands as she melts into him, and it’s...it’s perfect. It’s the kiss they would have if her life was a movie. If this was their first date. If things were less complicated. If she were less broken. 

After a few seconds, or hours, or a week, Annabeth isn’t sure - they break apart and the fog in her brain clears just enough to realize what’s just happened. She shakes herself, takes a step back, her chest heaving as she tries to learn to breathe, again. “We can’t,” she barely whispers the words, still breathless. The air feels too cold on her skin, without his arms around her. “We - we can’t do this. We can’t - we can’t date.”

“Annabeth, I -”

“No,” She can’t look at him. She crosses her arms protectively over her ribcage and tries to choose her words carefully. “I know you probably think you have to ask me out to make this ‘right’ or whatever, but I don’t believe in that. I don’t want to be together out of some bullshit old fashioned sense of obligation that you think you have to me because we’re having a baby together. It won’t end well.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and she has to focus on keeping her feet planted firmly on the concrete as every instinct tells her to bolt. Because it needed to be said, as much as some small buried part of her wishes it wasn’t true. The line needs to be drawn before things get any messier than they already are. And if he’s going to leave, now would be better than later. 

“Okay” He says, finally, his voice low and soothing, “if that’s what you really want, I’ll respect it. But for what it’s worth…that’s not how I feel. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since we met. I was really hoping you’d call.” She takes the risk and lets herself meet his eyes, which is a mistake because they’re so earnest, almost longing, and -  _ fuck _ , it’s too much. “That hasn’t changed.”

He breathes out those last three words, and she feels all of the oxygen whoosh out of her lungs even as the corners of her traitorous mouth twitch upwards. “You barely know me.” 

“I know enough.” 

She shakes her head. “We just - we can’t. This could completely blow up in our faces, and then we’ll still have this kid...what if we break up and end up hating each other?”

Slowly, he steps forward into her space, placing his hands gently on the sides of her arms. “What if we don’t?”

Something about his eyes, or the way he’s approaching her so carefully, reminds her of Thalia. A wave of panic rolls through her.

_ You can join our family. _

Percy is waiting patiently, his eyes searching hers and his brows scrunched together in concern. And God, she wants to just say yes. To trust him. But...trusting people is a bad idea. She’d learned that the hard way, more than once. “Percy - I don’t know. I can’t - I can’t think about this, right now -”

“Okay, okay.” He backs up, lifts his hands off her arms and holds them up, palms facing her in surrender. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to...I know it’s a lot, with the baby, and - and you’re right. We don’t know each other very well. I just...I want to get to know you. Can I get to know you?”

She takes a few deep breaths with her eyes trained on the sidewalk, arms still crossed tightly. “Like...friends?”

He’s smiling when she finally looks up at him. “Friends.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” He pauses for a moment, and his voice turns somber. “But if we’re gonna be friends, I do have a confession to make.”

Annabeth’s heart drops. “What is it?”

He sighs dramatically, and when he looks back at her his eyes are pleading. “I don’t actually know your last name.”

Something cracks inside her and suddenly she’s laughing so hard she has to double over from the force of it.  _ Stupid. _ He laughs along with her, one hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck.

And, okay. Friends. She can be friends with someone without getting too attached. She can do this.

“Chase.” She tells him, “Annabeth Chase.” The smile she gets in return is blinding.

And even now, as she’s struggling to hold back her laughter - Annabeth has just enough sense to see that smile and realize she’s screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, or hit me up on tumblr at perca-beths! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna hold of posting this until next week but I'm having a day today, so here you go! 
> 
> Special shoutout to [this text post](https://schmergo.tumblr.com/post/138779193446/the-pride-and-the-prejudice-2-proud-2-prejudiced)
> 
> Enjoy!

**(three)**

  
[5:48 PM] **Percy:** okay so

[5:48 PM] **Percy:** annabeth chase

[5:48 PM] **Percy:** if we’re gonna be friends there are a few really important things i need to know about you

[5:50 PM] **Annabeth:** cool, i’m great at tests

[5:51 PM] **Percy:** we get it, ur smart

[5:52 PM] **Percy:** we hope the baby inherits your brains

[5:52 PM] **Percy:** stop bragging

Annabeth lets out a sigh of relief. She’d been on edge, most of the day - overthinking what she’d said last night, worrying she’d been too harsh, hoping things weren’t going to turn horribly awkward between them.

(Wishing she could stop thinking about the way his lips felt on hers, the way his hand on her cheek had sent electricity sparking down her spine.)

(Telling herself it didn’t mean anything.)

She’d been a distracted mess all day, spending twice as long as she usually would double checking her designs and finding simple mistakes. She’d decided to text him tomorrow and attempt to smooth things over then, but about half an hour after she got home from work, he’d texted her in his usual joking way, like nothing had happened.

Annabeth rolls onto her back, leaving the book she’d been attempting to read propped open next to her on the bed and giving her phone her full attention. 

  
  


[5:53 PM] **Annabeth:** just ask me your questions already

[5:56 PM] **Percy:** fiiiine

[5:56 PM] **Percy:** important question #1:

[5:57 PM] **Percy:** you can only watch 1 movie for the rest of your life

[5:57 PM] **Percy:** what is it?

[5:57 PM] **Annabeth:** wow you really like hitting that send button, don’t ya

[5:58 PM] **Percy:** yes

[5:58 PM] **Percy:** it just feels right

[5:58 PM] **Percy:** answer the question

[6:02 PM] **Annabeth:** pride and prejudice

[6:02 PM] **Percy:** omg

[6:02 PM] **Percy:** you’re such a nerd

[6:03 PM] **Annabeth:** really starting to regret giving you my number

[6:03 PM] **Percy:** too bad

[6:03 PM] **Percy:** ur stuck with me now

[6:05 PM] **Annabeth:** you’re the worst

[6:06 PM] **Annabeth:** what’s your movie then if you’re gonna be so judgmental

[6:08 PM] **Percy:** finding nemo

[6:08 PM] **Percy:** obviously

[6:09 PM] **Annabeth:** really?

Annabeth drops her phone onto her chest and holds it there, biting her lip. Fuck, how does he _do_ this? It’s like she’s fifteen again, talking to the first guy who’d ever asked her on a date, with her heart doing flips every time a new message comes in. She closes her eyes and presses the phone down onto her sternum, half begging herself to get a grip and half wanting to revel in the feeling, for just a minute. It’s been a long time since anyone’s made her feel...whatever this is.

“You will not _believe_ Nancy today, I -” The door swings open suddenly, and before Annabeth can school her expression into something more neutral, Piper’s standing in the doorway with her eyes narrowed critically, having stopped mid sentence. “What’s going on with you?”

Annabeth sits up, setting her phone down at her side in what is hopefully a casual movement. “What?”

“Something’s different.”

At some point in their seven years of friendship, Piper had figured out how to read Annabeth like a book. And most of the time, it’s a good thing. She knows when to force Annabeth out of her comfort zone and when to give her space, when to let her bury her feelings, when to push her to talk about something. 

She has to be careful, now, because the second Piper figures out she’s texting a _boy_ , it’s over. Annabeth doesn’t really date, so Piper learning of Percy’s existence leads pretty quickly to Piper finding out about the baby, and she still isn’t ready to leave the bubble they’re in, just yet. 

It’s not that she thinks Piper will take it badly. More likely, she’ll be bringing home tiny onesies, and scouring baby name websites, and she’ll probably plug photos of Annabeth and Percy into one of those apps that morphs two faces together so she can see what the baby will look like. Piper knowing will make this baby real in a much more pressing, immediate way than the ultrasound had. 

And all Annabeth wants is to keep coming home and pretending her life isn’t about to be completely upended, just for a little bit longer. Which makes it pretty inconvenient to have a best friend who knows her so well. 

She adjusts the bobby pins holding the loose bun on the back of her head for an excuse to avoid eye contact. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Piper crosses her arms and looks her up and down as if she’s scanning for something. “Did you meet someone?”

“No.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“No one.”

Her phone traitorously buzzes as three new texts come in, causing Piper’s eyebrows to rise up under her choppy bangs. Annabeth keeps her face expressionless as she picks it up, carefully angling the screen away from Piper’s prying gaze, and pretends she’s just now seeing who the messages are from.

“Reyna from work.” She lies, voice even as she drops her phone back onto the bed. “Total coincidence.”

“Uh, huh.”

Okay, if denial isn’t working, try distraction. “What were you saying about Nancy?”

“I’m not letting this go.” Piper extracts one arm to point an accusing finger at her. “You seem….happy.”

“Shut up, I do not.”

“I know what I saw when I walked in. You have a crush on someone. If this was the 90s you’d have the phone cord twirled around your finger right now.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “We were little kids in the 90s.”

“My point stands.”

“You’ve seen too many movies,” she says flatly. “Just tell me what Nancy did today.” Piper considers this for a moment, but Annabeth meets her stare without blinking, knowing with absolute certainty that her best friend will give up long before she does. 

“Fine. But we will come back to this.” She relents, as expected, and flops down onto the bed beside Annabeth. “Nancy complained to our boss today that I’m too _passive aggressive.”_

“Were you being passive aggressive?”

“I started an email to her today with ‘per my last email.’”

Annabeth barks out a laugh. “So, yes.”

“Well if she had just read my first fucking email, I wouldn’t have had to say it.”

“Poor Nancy.”

Piper inspects the end of her braid, grumbling, “She’s lucky I’m not aggressive aggressive.” 

Annabeth laughs, throwing out another thank you to the universe for the random dorm roommate assignment that brought her Piper McLean.

At first, Annabeth thought they were so completely opposite that they would be lucky just to tolerate each other. But for some reason, Piper had looked at eighteen-year-old Annabeth - with her _don’t fuck with me_ eyes, and the suitcase that she couldn’t unpack for six months, and had decided to see her new best friend. Not that Annabeth had made it easy for her. She had been cold (or _prickly_ , as Piper affectionately described her) and had spent most of their first semester trying to keep her at arm’s length. It didn’t work. And now, the only reason for most of the good things in Annabeth’s life is the fact that Piper had been exceptionally stubborn.

She nudges Piper with one food where she lays at the foot of the bed. “Pad Thai and Ru Paul?” 

“God, yes,” Piper groans. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“You could stand to say it a bit more.” Annabeth replies with a long suffering sigh.

Piper sticks her tongue out in response and rolls herself off the bed to take a shower while Annabeth calls in their order. She makes herself wait until she can hear water running before she opens her text chain with Percy again.

[6:12 PM] **Percy:** i would never joke about finding nemo, annabeth

[6:12 PM] **Percy:** i’m offended that you think i would

[6:12 PM] **Percy:** it’s an epic odyssey with great lessons about family, and letting go of control, and not touching the butts you don’t have consent to touch

It’s a good thing she’d waited until Piper left the room, because Annabeth can’t stop the stupid grin from spreading across her face as she types out her reply.

\---

[8:32 PM] **Percy:** i’ve actually never seen pride and prejudice

[8:33 PM] **Percy:** but it sounds like a prequel to fast and furious?

[8:33 PM] **Percy:** is there a 2 proud 2 prejudiced?

[8:33 PM] **Percy:** is that a thing?

[8:33 PM] **Percy:** what about pride and prejudice: tokyo drift?

The texts come during their third episode of Ru Paul, and she’s so caught off guard by her laughter that the only option is a sad attempt at covering it with a cough and making a show of downing her glass of water.

 _I don’t have a crush,_ she tells herself, and she doesn’t even need to see Piper’s suspicious expression to know it’s not a very convincing lie.

\---

“Is this a joke?”

His sigh crackles over the phone, defeat palpable in just his voice. _“I wish it was.”_

Annabeth shakes her head at the pizza box she’s just set on her counter. Luckily Piper is staying at Jason’s tonight, or she would have had to dodge a million questions concerning who had ordered a pizza for her, and why they had asked someone to write “oops” in large black letters on the top of the box. It’s from the restaurant they’d eaten at after her appointment a few days ago, and it’s got so many olives on it she can barely see the cheese. (EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA OLIVES is printed on the receipt, and apparently he thought it was funny enough that he was willing to pay an additional $3.50 for them.)

It didn’t take long for her to realize what it meant. After all, he had just finished making fun of her extra olive pizza when she made this bet. A pizza to whoever could keep the baby a secret longer.

“Percy, it’s been…” she checks the calendar hanging by her fridge, “ _six_ days.”

 _“I know,”_ he groans.

“I thought you’d at least make it to September.”

_“Told you I’m terrible at secrets.”_

She doesn’t bother to try to contain the amusement in her voice. “Terrible seems like an understatement.”

He chuckles. “ _Yeah, yeah.”_

“So, your mom knows?”

_“Yep. The worst part is she didn’t even push me for it. She just asked how I’ve been and I folded like a fucking lawn chair.”_

Annabeth just laughs into the phone, staring at her ridiculous pizza and wondering, again, if she’ll ever fully wrap her head around Percy Jackson. “How’d she take it?”

_“Well at first she thought I was joking. And then she cried."_

"Oh." She says, her heart plummeting down into her stomach. 

_"Oh, no, no."_ Percy corrects hurriedly at her tone. _"Tears of joy, I promise. She's really excited."_

“She’s not...disappointed?”

_“No, no way. She's really happy about it, she's gonna love being a grandma. I mean I’m sure she was probably expecting me to be in a serious relationship before having a kid but...she gets it. She hasn’t had a very traditional life either."_

She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “That’s great. That she’s happy, I mean.”

 _“Yeah, I knew she would be. She’s the best. She can't wait to meet you, by the way. And she wants to know what kind of cookies you like so she can bake some for you._ ”

“Wow…” She pulls her shoulder up to hold her phone while she pulls a plate down out of a cabinet, tries and fails not to think of her own parents in comparison. “That’s, uh. That’s really nice.” 

He must pick up on something in her voice, because his next question is “ _Do you think your family will be disappointed?_ ”

“Honestly?” She hasn’t given too much thought to how that conversation would go. (Hey dad, remember when you said I was throwing my life away by not going to Yale? Well now I’ve been knocked up by a total stranger, proud of me yet?) And...she’ll admit to being pessimistic in general, but there’s no way that conversation is anything but a trainwreck. “Yeah.”

He hums. _"I’m sorry.”_

“No it’s, uh,” She clears her throat. It’s been a while since she’s had to explain this situation to anyone, even in the bare-bones version she’s about to give Percy. “It’s really not a big deal. We’re not very close, so.”

_“Oh."_

“Yeah.”

_“Do you...do you think you’ll tell them about this?”_

It’s easier to be honest, over the phone. “I don’t know...not for a while, anyway.”

“ _Okay_ .” He pauses for a moment. “ _You know, I’m here, if you want to talk about it._ ”

_You can join our family._

She can feel her heart expanding like a balloon in her chest, pressing against her ribs, but she can’t. That story requires a level of trust Annabeth hasn’t felt toward anyone outside of Piper in a long time.

 _“I don’t mean to brag,_ ” he says softly when she doesn’t respond for too long, “ _but I have been told I’m a very good listener.”_

She surprises herself when she doesn’t say no. “Maybe some other time.”

“ _Okay. The offer doesn’t expire._ ”

“Okay.” She hasn’t even told him anything, really, but somehow she feels lighter. She clears her throat. “Although it seems like a questionable offer, coming from someone who’s so terrible at keeping secrets.”

“ _Ouch_.” He says, matching her sudden change in tone. _“I take it you’re still on information lockdown over there?”_

“Obviously.”

_“Well, you don’t have to sound so happy about it.”_

“If it makes you feel better, it is getting pretty tricky. Piper knows something is going on. I had to change the passcode on my phone because she keeps asking who I’m texting all the time.”

 _“Oh, is that so?_ ” He asks, sounding far too happy.

“Shut up. You’re just lucky she’s over at her boyfriend’s tonight. She would have had a field day with this mystery pizza delivery.”

 _“Shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that._ ”

“It’s okay.” 

_“Should I just rent out a billboard while I’m at it? Take care of the rest of the city all at once?”_

Annabeth laughs as she pulls a few slices of pizza onto her plate. “Might as well.”

 _“Alright, send me the photo you want me to use on it._ ”

“I’ll get right on that.”

_“Cool. Oh hey, did they put enough olives on the pizza?”_

She sighs as she gathers up her dinner and makes her way to the couch. “You’re dumb.”

 _“It made you laugh, though_.”

“Go annoy someone else.”

 _“Okay, okay_ .” He gives her another soft laugh. It’s a nice sound. _"I'll_ _let you go. Enjoy your olives, you weirdo.”_

“I will.”

 _“Talk to you later._ ”

“Yeah.” She can’t seem to stop smiling, now. “And, uh, thank you. For the pizza.”

 _“Of course._ ” He sounds like he’s smiling, too.

“Goodnight, Percy.”

 _“Goodnight, Annabeth._ ”

She hangs up and drops her head back into the couch cushions, trying to catch her breath for a moment. 

As much as she wants to dismiss it, this stupid pizza means something. It’s physical proof that he was telling her the truth, that day. Twenty dollars spent because he couldn’t lie to someone he loves, even for just a few weeks. Before she can overthink it, she sends him a photo of herself holding up one olive-overloaded slice, her mouth open wide, teeth bared underneath it like she’s about to swallow it whole. 

[7:21 PM] **Annabeth:** for the billboard 

Two minutes later he replies with an equally goofy photo of himself, with his eyes crossed and his mouth twisted in a way that really should be unattractive, but Annabeth can’t seem to convince herself that it is. Mostly, it makes her stupidly happy.

[7:23 PM] **Percy:** perfect, goes great with the one i’m using 

[7:24 PM] **Annabeth:** wow, this baby really hit the genetic lottery

[7:24 PM] **Percy:** obviously :) 

She tries to tell herself, again, that it doesn’t change anything. That, _fine -_ maybe she does have a little bit of a crush, but that doesn’t change the fact that she can’t open her heart up that way, can’t start to depend on him. That a perfect storybook ending with a happily ever after doesn’t exist, for her.

But, as she takes another bite of her victory pizza, a gift from this ridiculous boy who makes her laugh, and argues with her about olives, and says things like _I don’t scare easy,_ and apparently can’t keep a secret…

It feels a little bit possible.


	4. Chapter 4

**(four)**

Annabeth had really been looking forward to a relaxing Saturday.

It was raining, when she woke up, and she had been prepared to spend the whole day curled up on her couch with a book, maybe with a break for a nap or two, when Piper came home and ruined everything. 

“Girl’s Day!” She had announced, dropping two plastic bags Annabeth knew had to be from the liquor store around the corner onto their kitchen counter. “Clarisse and Katie are in, and I texted Lacy and Drew from work, too!”

Annabeth dropped her face into her hands for a second when Piper wasn’t looking. 

Piper is a big fan of creating traditions. There were the typical major holiday traditions, but there were also the weird little ones they had made up for all of the other holidays - like picnics at the park on Arbor Day, watching _Legally Blonde_ from a blanket fort every year on International Women’s Day. Every Sunday morning, they went to Jason’s apartment and forced him to cook them breakfast like he had when they were still in college.

Girl's Day is a tradition that just sort of happens whenever Piper decides it needs to happen. Their friends come over to waste the day lounging around their living room, watching movies, talking, painting their nails, and day drinking. Mostly day drinking.

In fact, the day drinking is such an important part of Girl’s Day in Piper’s mind that Annabeth knew she couldn’t just quietly stay sober. Piper would call her out on it within five minutes. She needed to get out of the apartment. So she made up a story about meeting Reyna at her office right after lunch, to work on a project that absolutely couldn’t wait until Monday - something that had happened on weekends enough times in the past that Annabeth knew Piper wouldn’t question it. 

Lying to her best friend sucks, but she’s only got one week left of this privacy before she tells Piper about the baby, and she wants to dig her fingernails into it.

(Besides, some ridiculous sentimental part of her that only exists where Piper is concerned wants it to be just a little bit special. Wants to sit Piper and Jason down at Sunday Breakfast and make a whole announcement out of it, rather than getting caught. It’s what Piper would want, if she knew.)

So, now Annabeth is here: walking aimlessly in the vague direction of her office, ducking under awnings to avoid the rain and trying to decide where to spend the next six to eight hours.

She could _actually_ go to her office but she knows if she does she won’t be able to resist looking over her designs, and she’s too exhausted to work today. It’s still raining, so she can’t sit at a park with her book. She could go to a coffee shop, but if she has to spend even a minute surrounded by the intoxicating smell of the coffee she isn’t allowed to drink, she might explode. 

Besides, she knows where she really wants to go, if she’s honest.

She pulls up Percy’s contact on her phone, smiles to herself at the dumb photo he’d sent her that night two weeks ago when he ordered her that ridiculous pizza.

They've talked on the phone a few times, since then. They still texted too, almost every day, but she’d had a few urgent things to discuss. Like the day she absolutely needed to let out her anger about morning sickness before she started throwing things. Or when she freaked herself out doing research one night and needed to make sure he didn’t have a family history of any genetic diseases. Since the pregnancy is still a secret, Percy was really her only option, those times. She really had no choice.

Three times last week, though, she’d called him as she left her office and walked home instead of taking the subway, just so she could stay on the phone with him until she reached her apartment. She didn’t really have an excuse for those. They just talked. At some point she had to admit that she just...likes the sound of his voice. 

_“Hey, Annabeth,”_ He answers on the second ring.

“Hey, um, are you busy today?”

_“Not really. What’s up?”_

“Well, Piper is having Girl’s Day at our apartment.”

_“Okay...is this your way of inviting me?”_

“Oh, no, sorry. It’s -”

 _“You mean you don’t want me to come to your Girl’s Day? That’s upsetting.”_ His tone is so mocking, she can feel his stupid smirk through the phone.

“Shut up, let me finish," she huffs. "Piper is having a bunch of our friends over for Girl’s Day - movies, facials...and margaritas.”

_“Okay….”_

“I can’t have margaritas, Percy. And Piper will definitely figure it out if I don’t have any. So I told her I had to meet up with someone from my office today to work on a project. Which is not true.”

 _“Ah. So you need a place to hide?_ ”

“Exactly.”

_“I’ll text you my address.”_

His address. She’s going to his apartment. Butterflies swoop around madly in her stomach. “Okay.”

_“See you soon.”_

\---

He opens the door with a wide smile before dramatically poking his head into the hallway, as if he’s making sure no one saw her. 

“Sure you weren’t followed?” He asks with mock seriousness in his tone.

She laughs. “Pretty sure.”

“Good. Should we come up with codenames? I feel like I should have a codename.”

 _Idiot._

(She _likes_ him.)

\---

Percy’s apartment is a lot nicer than she was expecting. It’s definitely a guy’s apartment - with mostly bare white walls, and an old trunk with duct tape on one corner acting as a coffee table. But it’s clean, and comfortable, and full of nice, natural light coming in through the large window that opens out onto a fire escape from his living room.

“So, this is where you live.” She says, taking in the room as she toes out of her shoes.

“Mhm.”

From the entry, she can see down the hall to an open door that belongs to a bathroom and two closed doors on either side.“Is this a two bedroom?” 

“Yeah, the second one was Grover’s room, but it’s empty right now.”

“Grover’s your best friend that went to Brazil?”

“Yep.” Percy sighs, crossing to the fridge and pulling out two cokes. “Asshole abandoned me.”

He’d told her a little bit about his best friend the night they met. He didn’t normally spend a lot of time in bars, he’d said, but he was out celebrating Grover’s last weekend in the city before he left for a year to do research and conservation in the Amazon. 

“Didn’t you say he had to go save the rainforest?” 

“Okay, yeah, he’s saving the rainforest. Whatever. Here I am, abandoned.”

“Awww.” She gives him a sarcastic pout as she accepts the can of coke he holds out for her. “That’s horrible.”

“Thank you. It’s tragic.”

Annabeth pulls off her jacket and hangs it on the back of a barstool while Percy passes her to flop down onto his couch. “This is a really nice apartment though. I love the open concept, and -” she wanders a little further into the kitchen area, taking in the rest of the room. “Is that exposed brick?”

She can hear Percy laughing behind her. “Is Girl’s Day really a thing or was this all an elaborate ploy to geek out over the architecture of my apartment?”

“Shut up. I can’t help it, I love exposed brick.” She answers, not even slightly embarrassed. She tends not to be, when Percy’s the one doing the teasing. 

He smiles at her. “Well, feel free to come by and admire it any time.” He turns his attention to the television and starts flipping through channels before she can react to that.

He’s just being nice, Annabeth tells herself, finally joining him on the couch and popping the tab on her soda.

“So, what are we watching?”

\---

They’re twenty minutes into their second movie - Princess Bride, Percy’s choice - when his sock-clad foot nudges hers where they’re propped up next to each other on the top of the trunk.

“Hey Annabeth - can I ask you something?” 

“Sure.”

“Why did you tell me?” He asks, his voice soft and his eyes trained on the television. “Before Piper or...or anyone.”

“I...uh.” It’s not what she was expecting - maybe that’s why she tells him the truth. “You deserved to know. And, I don’t know, you were...nice. That night. I knew you were a good guy.”

“You did?”

“I told you I never wanted to see you again and you left me a sticky note with a smiley face on it.” She answers dryly, watches a wide grin spread across his face. “Plus, I don’t know....you didn’t try to let me win.”

“What, at the barcade?”

“Mhm.”

“Was I supposed to let you win?”

“No.” She scoffs. “I hate it when people let me win.”

“Bold of you to assume I have enough skill to let you win anything, even if I wanted to.”

A peal of laughter escapes her lips. “You were pretty bad.”

“Hey! I almost beat you at ski-ball.”

“Almost.” She clicks her tongue, watches Inigo Montoya and Wesley have their sword fight for a few minutes before he speaks again.

“Do you ever...regret it? That night?”

She turns to meet his eyes - open and sparkling and a little bit vulnerable. And logically, her life would be simpler if she had never met him. Of course it would. And yet - 

“No,” she breathes out, “you?”

He gives her that little lopsided smile she’s starting to get addicted to. “No.”

She turns back to the television, tries to make herself focus on the movie instead of the way that smile warms her from the inside out.

\---

She wakes up sprawled out on Percy’s couch, under a blue knit blanket she doesn’t remember seeing before she apparently dozed off. The television is off, and while she can hear the regular sounds of the city drifting in through the window, the apartment itself is too quiet.

“Percy?” She calls. No answer. 

She stands, throwing the blanket over the back of the couch and stretching. She really hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but being eleven weeks pregnant has made her more exhausted than she’d ever thought physically possible.

Something yellow on the coffee table catches her eye - another sticky note, just like the one he left on her door. _Went to get food, back soon - P (hope you’re still craving lasagna!)_

She runs her thumb over the little smiley face he’s drawn in the bottom corner. 

It was something she’d mentioned yesterday, on the phone as she walked home from work - that she was starting to get pregnancy cravings, and all she wanted in the world was lasagna. He’d laughed as she complained that her need for a gooey, cheesy, tomato-saucey _something_ was desperate enough to commit murder over. 

It’s not a big deal that he remembered, she tells herself. It was literally yesterday. 

(Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly, regardless.)

She finds her phone buried in a couch cushion. It’s almost five o’clock, but according to the stream of texts from Piper, Girl’s Day is still going strong. She shoots off a quick reply, claiming she still has a lot of work to do and lamenting that she won’t be able to escape any time soon, then drops her phone onto the coffee table. 

She carries the sticky note with her as she walks the perimeter of the room. It’d be an invasion of privacy to look into either of the bedrooms, but she figures snooping in the living room he’d left her asleep in is fair game. 

There’s not much on the walls but he does have a bookshelf in the corner that she examines. Not a ton of books, but thankfully none of those gritty crime novels Annabeth hates because they always turn out to be misogynistic in a way that’s just subtle enough that no one questions it. A worn copy of _The Hobbit_ , a few big academic looking books on ocean life. 

There’s a framed photo of what she’s guessing is Percy and his mom, maybe fifteen years ago, smiling brightly with their arms around each other on a beach somewhere. A few big seashells and a sand dollar the size of her hand. Some photos hang on the wall next to the bookshelf - a group of people that must be his friends, Percy, a few years younger, beaming from the center of the group, lifting up a man with a scruffy beard and curly light brown hair. A teenage Percy holding a chubby baby that must be his sister, him and his family at his college graduation. 

She’d already scoured through the movies and video games he keeps in his TV stand, so she moves on to the kitchen, runs one hand along that beautiful exposed brick wall - and then she sees it. She’d missed it before, when she was too busy taking in the architecture of his apartment. The photo from the ultrasound, held up by a magnet in the middle of his fridge door. 

He hung the sonogram on the fridge.

She imagines him coming home that night, pulling it from the pocket she’d watched him delicately tuck it into, and doing this. Her copy is hidden from Piper in the back of the drawer on her nightstand - but Percy had decided to display his, somewhere he’s sure to see it constantly.

Doubt had been needling at the back of her mind since he’d said he was excited, that day. She wondered if he was just telling her what he thought she wanted to hear, but this- isn’t this what someone who really was excited would do?

She’s not sure what to do with that realization, but it makes her smile so wide her cheeks hurt.

\---

She’s still standing in his kitchen when she hears a key turning in the lock.

“Hey, you’re awake.” He greets her, dropping a few grocery bags on his dining table. 

She holds up the sticky note, exactly like the one with his name and number on it that now lives in her desk drawer, with one finger on the adhesive. “Do you just carry sticky notes around in your pocket or something?”

His eyes shift away from her nervously, but he keeps an easy smile on his face.“Maybe. Don’t judge me.”

“It _is_ pretty weird...” She says, shooting a skeptical look his way. She reaches over to peer into one of the plastic bags he’d carried in, and where she was expecting to see a styrofoam takeout box, there are four cans of tomato sauce and a box of noodles. “Wait - are you _making_ lasagna?”

Percy pauses to give her a quizzical look as he pulls a large pot out of one of his cabinets. “Uh, is that okay?”

She blinks at him. “No, it’s...you can just _make_ lasagna? You know how to do that?”

“Yes,” he chuckles, “my mom taught me to cook.”

“You can cook?”

He scrunches his eyebrows up at her, like it’s such an unreasonable question. “Yes?”

“Sorry, it’s just - impressive.”

“Nah,” he says, lighting a burner on his stove to boil water. “The bar for guys is just low.”

God, she likes him.

She settles down at the table with a glass of water and watches him cook. He moves around comfortably in his kitchen, makes mixing sauce and browning hamburger meat and layering everything together look easy. She’d offer to help but she’s a disaster in the kitchen and she doesn’t think he’d appreciate her inevitably setting off his smoke alarm. But he doesn’t seem to mind.

A few times he catches her staring, but he just smiles and looks away sheepishly, and continues telling her stories about pranks he and Grover pulled off in high school. 

\---

  
  


The lasagna is fucking delicious.

\---

“So, big fancy architect. You must be _smart_ smart, huh?” He asks her toward the end of dinner, just as Annabeth is contemplating licking her plate clean.

“Oh, are you just now figuring that out?”

“No, I put that together pretty quickly. That thing you said about using the angles to kick my ass at air hockey tipped me off.”

She laughs, remembering the night they met. He was cute when he was confused. “It’s simple geometry.”

“I’m guessing there’s a lot of math involved in architecture?”

“Just a little,” she jokes. “I don’t know, math’s always been easy for me. My brain’s just wired that way, I guess.”

“Why architecture, though? Shouldn’t you be in a lab somewhere developing the cure for cancer?”

“Pretty sure that math is completely different.” She starts, and she can see the opportunity to brush it off, change the subject, but - for the first time she doesn’t want to. The room bathed in a warm orange glow from the setting sun, her stomach is full of the best home-cooked meal she’s ever tasted, and across from her sits a man who’s been nothing but kind and understanding, who hung his copy of the sonogram on his fridge. A man who says he just wants to get to know her. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, to let him. Just a little bit.

“I moved around a lot when I was a kid,” she continues, “and then I - uh, things were kind of up in the air for a while. But in Virginia there are a lot of old buildings. Like, _old._ Some are still standing that were built before the Revolutionary War. And I would look at those old buildings and think that it was so _insane_ that anything could stand in the same spot for so long. I wanted that, you know? I wanted to build something like that - something permanent.”

His expression has become very soft, while she’s been talking. “I’m sure you will.” He says, and something in his tone burns through her chest, warm and comforting. 

“Thanks.” She breathes out, ducking her head down and reaching up to tuck the few stray curls that have escaped her ponytail behind her ear for something to do with her hands. “You said you’re a marine biologist?”

“Mhm.”

“What do you actually do, though?”

It must not be an uncommon question for him. “I work for the state - Department of Environmental Conservation. I got lucky, mostly I’m the field research guy, which means I get to spend a lot of time hanging out on boats and scuba diving to collect samples.”

It’s a nice picture, imagining him in one of those skin-tight wetsuits. “Wow, saving the planet, huh?” she says as she reaches for her water and prays that he doesn’t see the blush rising on her cheeks.

He scratches the back of his neck. “Just a little part of it.”

“That’s incredible.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “The other half of the time it’s not very exciting. Cataloguing and stuff. But we make sure the marine life population is healthy, and that the city isn’t polluting the water too much - which, I mean, we definitely are, but we do what we can to limit it.”

She considers this for a moment. “I don’t need to worry you’re gonna die in a shark attack or something, do I?”

“Nah,” he says seriously, “the sharks are cool. We’re friends.”

He’s ridiculous. For what feels like the hundredth time since they met, she rolls her eyes at him with an exasperated smile on her face.

“You’re dumb.” She says, but he isn’t. He’s smart, and funny, and compassionate. He hung the sonogram on the fucking fridge.

“So I’ve heard.” He responds, but the spark in his eyes suggests he knows she doesn’t mean it, too. “Tell me about this big project you’re pretending to be working on today, then.”

\---

It’s almost nine, by the time they stop talking and leave the table. Percy rinses off their plates and Annabeth loads the dishwasher, despite his protesting that she doesn’t have to help clean up. She looks out the window as they’re finishing up, a little surprised to see how dark it’s become outside while she hasn’t been paying attention.

“I should probably get going.”

Percy looks up from where he’s been wiping down a counter, listening to her tell a story about one of her coworkers. “Is the coast clear at your apartment?”  
“I think so. By now they’re either passed out or they will be soon. And it’s late enough that I can probably get away with saying I’m too tired to drink, anyway.”

“Okay. Can I walk you home?”

“You’ve done enough for me today.” 

He gives her a relaxed smile. “I don’t mind.”

“No, stay here. See?” She continues, waving her phone so he can see the screen. “My Uber is three minutes away.”

“Okay, okay,” he replies, resigned. “Just - text me when you get there?”

“Yes, mom,” she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes for good measure.

“According to your doctor, my name is Dad, actually.”

She snorts. “Was that your first dad joke?”

“You know, it might have been. My first official one, anyway.” The grin on his face is infectious.

“How’d it feel?”

 _“Really_ good.” 

They just stand there, smiling at each other, for a moment, before Annabeth realizes what’s happening and breaks it to slip into her shoes.

“Thank you, for letting me hide here today.”

“Any time.” 

“Really,” She insists as she pulls on her jacket. “You didn’t have to give up your whole day for me. I appreciate it.”

He shrugs, one hand in his pocket as he holds his apartment door open for her. “Cute that you think I have a life. I didn’t give anything up, I promise.”

She thinks maybe he’ll stop here, stay in his apartment, but he just steps out into the hallway behind her, and she realizes he’s going to walk her all the way to the sidewalk.

_Ridiculous._

“So,” He says as they reach the first landing. “One more week, right?”

“One more week. And then we can tell anyone we want.”

“You gonna tell Piper first?”

“Mhm. I’m gonna tell her and her boyfriend, Jason, at Sunday Breakfast, I think.”

“Sunday Breakfast?”

She feels a fond smile breaking out on her face. “It’s a tradition. Piper and I don’t really cook, but one day in college Jason made us pancakes, from scratch, better than any restaurant. So now every Sunday we invade his apartment and force him to cook us breakfast.”

Percy chuckles. “That sounds nice.”

She hums in agreement. “What about you? Who are you gonna tell first?”

“Well, as you know, my mom already knows,” he waits while she laughs at him. “And I’m pretty sure she told my stepdad, so that’s covered. So probably my sister. She’s gonna lose her mind, she’ll be so excited.”

“How old is she?”

“Eight.”

She hums. When her brothers were eight, she was already mostly out of the house, living at a boarding school miles and miles away from them.

His shoulder playfully bumps hers as they step out onto the sidewalk. “We should probably get together sometime so you can meet them, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean - yeah.” She smiles, hoping he won’t pick up on her flustered response and misunderstand. It’s not specifically his family that freaks her out, just - families in general intimidate her. She’d never really figured out how to interact with them.

_You can join our family._

“My mom will be excited.” He says, and he must have picked up on something, with how gentle his voice is. “I think she can’t wait to have someone to gang up on me with.”

Laughter bubbles up out of her chest. “I’d like that.”

“I knew you would.” 

She sticks her tongue out at him.

“And I’d love to meet Piper and Jason, too, sometime,” he continues. “If you want me to.”

Her heart melts, a little bit, at the fact that she never had to explicitly tell him that Piper and Jason are the only family that really matters to her. He just figured it out on his own. “Yeah. I do.”

Her car pulls up, then, and in a sudden blaze of rash decision making, she hugs him. 

It’s too quick to be much of anything, though her skin feels like it’s on fire in every place it touched him, anyway. When they break apart his eyebrows are scrunched together in confusion, but she catches that lopsided smirk form on his lips as she ducks into the car. 

His face stays frozen like that, incredulous but undeniably happy, until her car pulls away from the curb and she can’t see him anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Is Percy's job in this fic a real thing? I have no idea but I have a friend who does that for a different state government so I figured we could all pretend it's possible ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thanks so much to everyone who has left comments, kudos, or sent me those really nice asks on tumblr! This fandom is too kind, and you guys have no idea how much that feedback motivates me to keep working on this, so thank you!


	5. Chapter 5

**(five)**

The ceiling fan makes a soft clicking noise every few seconds because it wobbles as it spins around, and Annabeth has become hyper aware of it in the three hours she’s been laying in bed trying to fall asleep.

_Click, click, click._

Tomorrow, or, today technically since it’s after midnight now, is her first day of being officially twelve weeks pregnant. And at nine, she’s going to meet Piper at Jason’s apartment, and when they finish up their pancakes Annabeth is going to tell them. The news feels like a bomb that she’s planning on smuggling in, waiting for the opportune moment to set it off.

_Click, click, click._

She closes her eyes and tries for a centering breath. If she could just calm down, shut her brain off, get a little bit of sleep...

Her phone buzzes, lighting up the room from her bedside table.

[1:24 AM] **Percy:** what’s up with everyone using fruits as the point of comparison? Is there a reason?

[1:24 AM] **Percy:** the baby is the size of a plum, btw

[1:25 AM] **Percy:** oh shit sorry it’s late, hope I didn’t wake you up, text me later 

Her phone screen is so bright it burns her eyes, but she can’t help but smile anyway. Her thumb hits the call button before she can overthink it.

 _“Hey, sorry did I wake you up?”_ He answers, his voice low and quiet.

“No, I was awake. A plum, huh?”

_“Yep. I’m realizing now that I don’t think I actually know how big a plum is, though. Do you?”_

Annabeth laughs. “No.”

_“Well, it’s bigger than a fig, apparently. Last week was a fig.”_

“So, not helpful.”

_“No, not at all!”_

Annabeth smiles as she rolls onto her back. “Who knows what size a fig is?”

_“Right? Who chooses these fruits?”_

“We should file a complaint.”

His laugh is warm, even through the phone. 

_“So…”_ He says after a few seconds. _“Everything okay?_ ”

“Yeah. I just can’t sleep. I’m telling Piper and Jason in the morning.”

Percy hums. _“Sunday Breakfast, right?”_

“Mhm.”

_“Nervous?”_

Annabeth groans. “Maybe a little. It’s stupid.”

_“I bet it’s not stupid.”_

“I just mean...I know Piper will be fine with it. She’ll be happy. Why am I nervous?”

_“Because she’s important to you.”_

She releases a long breath, feeling calmer than she has all day. How does he do that? His tone, his words, the low timbre of his voice are all so soothing that her nerves melt away with every second she spends listening to him talk. “Yeah. She is.” 

_Click, click, click._

He’s quiet and the moment stretches out with plenty of space for her to say more. She should change the subject, hang up and try to get some sleep. She shouldn’t open this door, let any of her broken pieces tumble out into the light for Percy to see. She can’t. And yet - 

She stares up at the colorful pattern the lights of the city make on her ceiling and decides to be brave.

“For a while Piper was basically the only person I had.” She starts, swallowing down the lump in her throat. “ My mom left when I was five. My dad was really distant, after that. He’s a history professor, and when my mom was gone he just kind of...buried himself in his work and tried to forget I existed. And then he got married to my stepmom...we never really got along. I mean, I know I was a difficult kid. I felt like my mom was being replaced, I lashed out. But uh, anyway we fought a lot. Then Bobby and Matthew were born, and they were a real family and I was just this...extra piece.” She speaks quietly into the darkness of her bedroom, her words floating above her and dissolving into the air, leaving her feeling lighter, without them. “But I found Piper, when I came here for college, and she’s been there for me more than my family ever has.”

 _“Piper sounds really great.”_ His voice is soft. A gentle, soothing breeze floating across New York City from his apartment to hers. 

“She is.”

_“Sorry about your family.”_

“It’s okay. It’s just...complicated.”

_“I get that.”_

“You do?”

 _“Mhm. I mean, I always had my mom, but, for a long time it was just the two of us._ _”_ He starts, quietly, and she imagines that he’s in his bed too, carving out this little piece of himself and releasing it into the darkness, just for Annabeth. _“She had me really young, and my dad didn’t stick around. And, uh...she was married to this guy for a while. Gabe. He was...not a good guy. We hated each other. He didn’t - he wasn’t good to my mom, either. She tried to send me to boarding schools to get away from him, but I had a hard time with school, so I didn’t exactly make it any easier on her. I don’t know. Anyway, she’s married to Paul, now, and he’s great. Things are way better. But for a while there, it was pretty...”_

He trails off, there, and Annabeth realizes it’s the first subject they’ve reached that he seems to have a hard time talking about.

(Somehow, in all her worrying, it never occurred to her that he might have some broken pieces, too.)

“Complicated?”

 _“Yeah.”_ He whispers. He didn’t have to share this with her, but she’s glad he did. It feels precious. She wants to tuck it up under her ribs for safe keeping, to protect it, to feel it warm her from the inside out.

“Sorry.”

_“Me too. But it’s okay, really. Things are better, now.”_

“That’s good. I’m glad you have your mom.”

 _“Yeah,”_ he says, a smile laced into his voice. _“I’m glad you have Piper.”_

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I just...I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t take it well.”

_“Hey, she will.”_

“But if she doesn’t -”

 _“Annabeth, if she doesn’t - which, there’s no way she won’t, but, even if she doesn’t - then you guys will figure it out. It’ll be fine.”_ She closes her eyes as his words wash over her, calming and, somehow, undeniably true.

 _“And in the meantime,”_ he continues softly, _“you’ll still have me and the plum.”_

A smile tugs at her lips. “Okay. You’re right.”

 _“It happens, occasionally.”_ He says, chuckling.

“We’re not about to start referring to the baby as ‘the plum’, though.”

_“No? I thought it was cute.”_

“Nope.”

_“Hmmm...I think next week is a lemon, is that better?”_

“Not even a little bit.”

_“Damn.”_

She laughs, quietly, though she’s not sure why, since she’s the only one in the apartment.

 _“You know…”_ he continues after a moment, _“I could come with you tomorrow, when you tell them. if you want me to.”_

“You don’t have to do that.”

_“But would it make you less nervous?”_

And there’s always been something so reassuring about Percy, even in the short amount of time she’s known him. She can’t deny it. “Yes.”

_“Then please, Annabeth - can I come with you? I’m very charming, and I’m excellent at putting away breakfast food.”_

A laugh bubbles up out of her chest. She imagines telling Piper with him sitting there next to her, shooting her one of those little lopsided smirks before she drops the bomb, and suddenly she doesn’t want it any other way. “Okay.”

\---

He arrives at her apartment so they can walk to Jason’s together right as she’s pulling on her shoes. “Hey,” She greets him as she opens the door, “Come on in, I’ll just be a minute.”

He looks nice, a little dressed up in a henley and black jeans with a denim jacket. She wonders if he’d been thinking of impressing Piper as he got dressed this morning, which is ironic considering Piper will likely be stumbling out of Jason’s room in her pajamas just as breakfast is being served.

Annabeth’s dressed comfortably in leggings and a baggy grey sweatshirt, excited about the fact that the end of September has brought with it the first real cold snap and she can start wearing her looser, more pregnancy friendly winter clothes. Her stomach has started to round out to the point that her jeans have to be held closed with a hair tie looped around the button, although it’s still really only noticeable to her. In a few weeks, she’ll have to buy some of those maternity pants with the big panel of spandex at the top. Thankfully, after today Piper will be able to join her - and if anyone can find a pair of those pants that aren’t hideous, it’s Piper.

“Good morning,” he says, smiling, as he closes the door behind him.

“So, I didn’t get a chance to tell anyone that you’re coming, but it should be fine.” She says, reaching into her hall closet for a scarf.

“Element of surprise, I love it.” Percy grins.

Annabeth starts winding the scarf around her neck, and suddenly learns that she can’t wear scarves anymore. The morning sickness has been so persistent that she spends most of her days right on the line of just feeling sick and actually throwing up - but the pressure the scarf puts on her neck pushes her right over the edge. 

Without a word to Percy, she turns and runs back toward her bathroom, unwrapping her scarf in the process. And, while it’s certainly not an enjoyable aspect of pregnancy, Annabeth’s gotten pretty used to vomiting. After almost six weeks, it’s become more of a minor inconvenience than anything else - but that doesn’t make it something she wants Percy to see. So when he follows her into the bathroom, she tries to wave him off. 

He ignores her, kneeling down and taking the hair she’d gathered up on the back of her head with one hand, gently pulling back the pieces she’d missed that had been hanging down in her face. He doesn’t say anything, but she feels his other hand start rubbing a soothing circle between her shoulder blades as her body convulses. 

“Sorry,” she says when it’s over, leaning back against the side of the tub, her head dropped back and her eyes closed.

“Don’t be.” He reaches over to flush the toilet. “Do you want me to get you some water?”

“Please.”

She pulls herself up and starts brushing her teeth while she waits for him to return. No one, outside of Piper, has seen her like this before, and she’s expecting to feel that lead weight of regret in her stomach that always comes with being vulnerable in front of another person, but it’s not there.

She’ll have to figure out what that means, later.

Percy returns and she takes a few sips of water before they walk back toward the kitchen and she starts ushering them out the door again. He gives her a look she’s not sure how to interpret as she pulls her coat on, without the scarf this time. “What?”

“Just thinking about how glad I am to not be a woman right now.”

All of the tension in her brain dissolves as she laughs. “Yeah, you lucky bastard. Being pregnant sucks.”

“No kidding.” He shakes his head, holding open the door for her. “Remind me to make this up to you, somehow.” 

“I accept retribution in the form of lasagna.”

He beams at her as she locks up her apartment. “I think I can make that happen.”

\---

Percy has already heard a few stories about Piper, so Annabeth spends most of the walk filling him in on Jason.

Piper and Jason met in a psychology class their senior year of college. When Annabeth met him, she could hardly believe it when Piper introduced him as her boyfriend - he was the complete opposite of every other guy (or girl) Piper had ever dated. He was responsible, straight-laced, reserved. He owned a checkbook and more than one tie. He had a plan for his life.

The people Piper tended to date were...lacking in a few of those departments, to say the least, but she had never been very serious about any of them. Until Jason.

Annabeth hadn’t been sure what to think about him, in the beginning. But when she lost Thalia and everything blew up with Luke, Jason was there - he gave up a Saturday helping Piper collect Annabeth’s things, when they had only been dating a few weeks, without complaint. That night, as Annabeth had a mental breakdown in the middle of putting her new bed frame together, he just wordlessly went to the kitchen and returned with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s and two spoons for her and Piper. And then Jason, quiet, reserved, immaculate Jason, said, “He’s a fucking idiot, and he didn’t deserve you,” as he took her place and finished building her bed while she leaned on Piper’s shoulder, crying and eating ice cream. 

She doesn’t mention any of this to Percy, for obvious reasons. But she tells him a few of the funnier stories - nights out where they had bonded over trying to wrangle Piper and Jason’s best friend Leo - and explains that Jason is quiet, but just because he really thinks everything through before he speaks, and that the Knicks are a good topic if things get awkward.

“I'm sure we’ll be fine,” Percy waves her off, smiling. “I’m good at making friends, you should know.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes at him as a traitorous voice in the back of her head asks if _friends_ are what she and Percy really are.

\---

Surprisingly, Piper is awake and sitting on the counter watching Jason flip pancakes when Annabeth lets herself into his apartment.

“Hey guys,” She starts as they hang their jackets and make their way through the living room to where Piper and Jason can see them. “Uh, this is Percy.”

Both heads whip around to look in their direction, shock written on their faces. It’s an unprecedented situation. In the four years since Luke, Annabeth hasn’t even gone on a second date, let alone brought a guy over to meet her friends. 

It’s a testament to their friendship that Piper doesn’t comment on it as Annabeth introduces them. She just gives Annabeth a pointed stare that the boys can’t see as Jason extends his hand out to shake Percy’s. Annabeth raises her eyebrows, telepathically telling Piper: _I’ll explain later, be normal._

“Nice to meet you.” Jason says as they shake hands. 

“You too, Annabeth has told me a lot about you guys.”

“Uh oh,” Piper says jokingly, her surprise smoothed over. “I hope she didn’t make me sound too crazy.”

Percy chuckles. “Only a little.”

Annabeth pours two glasses of orange juice for herself and Percy as her friends politely ask Percy a few questions about himself (which, thankfully, none of those questions are _so, how do you know Annabeth?)_ and Percy answers easily, charming as promised.

Finally, breakfast is ready and they all settle down around the table to eat. The plan had been to wait until the end of the meal to drop the news, but Annabeth’s nerves are begging her to get it over with, her heart is pumping so hard Piper can probably hear it across the table. She manages to wait until everyone has finished pouring syrup on their pancakes, and then she breaks.

“So, I...actually have something to tell you guys.” She starts. She glances over at Percy, who gives her an encouraging nod as he drops one hand under the table to find hers. She squeezes it once before turning back to face Piper, takes a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”

Piper’s eyes practically double in size as she slowly lowers the fork that had previously been halfway to her mouth. “Did - did I just hear you say you’re _pregnant?_ ”

Annabeth raises her chin, imagines her skin turning hard as iron. “Yes.”

“Oh is that why - I mean, is Percy…” Jason starts awkwardly, adjusting his glasses and looking between Annabeth and Percy as if the answer is floating somewhere in the air between them.

“Yep, I’m the father.” Percy says, obviously amused at being on the other side of the reveal, this time. His thumb taps out a pattern on her knuckles under the table.

Piper stares at Percy as if she’s only just realized he’s here. “Holy shit! You’re really - holy shit! This is - wait.” Her gaze whips back to Annabeth, searching her expression. “Is - is this a good thing?”

Annabeth looks back over at Percy, whose eyes are already sparkling above one of those lopsided smiles. She feels her own face splitting into a grin as she turns back to Piper. “Yes. I mean it’s obviously not something we planned, but...we’re gonna make the best of it.”

“Oh, thank god,” Piper says as she stands abruptly and rounds the table to pull Annabeth up and into a hug. “I don’t think I could’ve pretended not to be excited.”

Annabeth lets out a relieved laugh and Piper’s arms tighten around her, swaying both of them side to side. “Thank you,” she whispers, her eyes filling up with tears as it hits her, not for the first time, that no matter what happens she’ll always have Piper.

When they finally break apart, the boys are watching them with fond expressions.

“Oh come here,” Piper says as she steps around to Percy’s chair to pull him up into a hug as well. He’s stunned for a second, but he hugs Piper back warmly and smiles at Annabeth over her shoulder. Then Jason has also rounded the table and is standing right in front of her, pulling Annabeth into his arms, as well. 

“Congratulations,” he whispers in her ear, and it’s so typical of Jason to say the expected thing, even when the circumstances are so complicated - like it’s something normal, something to celebrate. It’s nice to hear.

They drop back into their seats, Piper and Annabeth still wiping their eyes, as everything settles back down. “Oh my god, okay.” Piper starts as soon as she’s seated. “I fucking knew something was up with you!”

Everyone laughs, breaking the tension completely. Annabeth takes the first bite of her pancake, and it might be the best thing she’s ever tasted. 

“Okay,” Piper continues after a minute, “tell me everything. When’s the due date?” 

“April 3rd.”

“Okay, Aries baby - love that for us. How far along are you now?”

“Twelve weeks today. Sorry - I know I shouldn’t have kept it a secret for so long, but -”

“Babe, please,” Piper reaches a hand across the table to fold over Annabeth’s. “Don’t worry about it. I get it.”

“So, how did you guys meet?” Jason asks.

“We met in July, at that bar The Lotus?” Percy replies, “The one on 73rd with all the arcade games.”

“Wait - is this _Hot Barcade Guy?_ ” Piper exclaims, her attention on Annabeth. “The guy you said was the best sex you’ve ever -”

She’s interrupted by Annabeth kicking her shin under the table. 

“Shit, I mean...the guy you met when we went out for your birthday?” Piper finishes awkwardly, suddenly very interested in cutting her pancakes.

Annabeth risks a quick glance at Percy, who’s taking a drink of orange juice and barely hiding a smirk behind the rim of the glass.

“Yeah.” Annabeth replies quietly, eyes glued to her plate and her heart pounding like it’s trying to jump out of her chest.

Piper clears her throat. “Anyway, uh - we have to go shopping, right? Have you bought anything for my beautiful niece or nephew yet?”

 _Smooth_ , Annabeth mouths to Piper as Percy picks up the conversation, laughing as he tells the group about how his mom has already gone overboard purchasing onesies.

 _Sorry,_ Piper mouths back, but her expression isn’t as regretful as she thinks it is.

\---

After breakfast is finished and cleaned up, the boys wander into the living room together, chatting easily about Jason’s job, and Piper manages to corner Annabeth in the kitchen by hanging back as she washes her hands.

“So...Percy’s really cool.” She starts innocently.

“Yeah, he is.”

“He seems sweet, and funny…”

Annabeth glares suspiciously at Piper as she towels off her hands. “What’s your point here?”

Piper glances through the open doorway, and waits until she hears Jason laugh at something Percy’s said before she speaks again, at a whisper, “What’s going on with you two?” 

Annabeth shrugs, leaning back against the counter. “We’re having a kid together.”

“No shit,” Piper says as she smacks Annabeth’s arm. “But are you dating? Or -”

“No. We’re just friends.”

Pipers eyes narrow at her. “Do I need to murder him?”

“No.” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “He’s been really great, with this, actually. He literally held my hair while I was puking before we came over here.”

Piper is taken aback. “Wait, you let him hold your hair while you were puking?” 

“I mean...yeah.”

“Okay, so what’s the problem?”

“There’s no -” Annabeth starts, but she can’t seem to finish the lie. She releases a frustrated sigh. “Okay, it’s me. I’m the problem. He...wants to be together, I think. Or, he did. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Babe -”

“I just can’t risk it, okay? It’s already too complicated. If we broke up -”

“You cannot live your life missing things that make you happy because you’re afraid of what might happen!” Piper whispers. “I know you’ve been hurt, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to -”

The rest of the lecture is cut off as Percy enters the kitchen. “Hey,” he says casually as he fills a glass with water. “You guys coming? Jason wants to watch Great British Bake Off but he said you’ll both murder him if he starts it without you.”

Annabeth jumps at the opportunity to get away from Piper, with her questions and her stupid sound logic. “Yep, let’s go.” She follows Percy out of the kitchen, avoiding her best friend’s knowing gaze as she goes. 

\---

He doesn’t ask to walk her home from Jason’s. It just sort of ends up happening, so naturally that Annabeth doesn’t even notice until they’re stopped in front of her building, and a bolt of lightning shoots down her spine as she remembers that the last time they stood here, he’d kissed her. It’s been over a month now, since that night, but the memory isn’t any less vivid as Annabeth meets his eyes.

Suddenly, she doesn’t want to go up to her apartment alone.

“Thank you, for coming today. I appreciate it.” She says.

Percy gives her a pointed and sarcastic look. “Mhm, meeting your very cool friends and eating all that free food was such a hardship.”

She rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying...you don’t have to keep thanking me for doing, like, bare minimum human decency things, you know?”

She just nods, gaze fixed on the sidewalk and her heart doing somersaults. There’s no easy way to tell him that his bare minimum is so much more than she’s used to. 

When she finally looks back up, he’s watching her with such a soft expression that she can’t help but smile back at him. He rocks back on his heels, hands in his pockets, and his eyes flick briefly to the door before returning to her face, and god, she doesn’t want him to leave. 

Piper’s words from earlier echo in her mind, and maybe she has a point. Annabeth can’t keep denying herself things that make her happy just because she’s afraid of what might come after. 

And, as messy and complicated as the whole thing is, Percy makes her happy. 

“Do you have somewhere else to be today?” She asks, impulsively. “You could come up, for a bit. If you want.”

A smirk slowly takes over Percy’s face. “Oh, you haven’t had enough of _Hot Barcade Guy,_ is that it?”

She covers her eyes with one hand as all of the blood in her body rushes to her face. “Oh my god, shut up.” 

“I did have a few hot, barcade related activities to do today, but, for you…”

“I changed my mind, get away from me.” She groans, turning away from him and entering the building, knowing without looking that he’ll follow. 

“Would you feel better if I told you that you were also the best -”  
  
“Nope. Stop talking. We’re never speaking of this again.”

Percy just laughs as they start up the stairs. “Aww, but I was excited about having a nickname.”

“I can think of a better one now that I know you, like...Seaweed...Brain.”

Percy snorts. “Seaweed Brain?”

“Yeah. You spend a lot of time underwater. And sometimes I wonder if your head is filling up with kelp.”

“I like Hot Barcade Guy better.”

“Too bad, Seaweed Brain.”

“Can I call you Hot Barcade Girl?”

“Absolutely not.”

Percy’s laugh is a low rumble at the back of his throat. It’s a nice sound. “Whatever you say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, and feel free to hit me up on tumblr at perca-beths!


	6. Chapter 6

**(six)**

“Do you really do your grocery shopping at Target?” Percy asks as he steps onto the escalator behind her.

Annabeth shrugs. “Sometimes.”

“Pretty sure we passed like fifty grocery stores to get here.”

“I happen to like Targets. They’re all exactly the same all across the country. It’s like a pocket dimension that exists outside of time and space.”

Percy chuckles. “You’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Of course.” 

“Alright,” he sighs, stepping off the escalator and following her through the automatic doors. “Show me the magic of this Target pocket dimension, then.”

She’s not really sure when grocery shopping became an activity that she wanted to invite Percy along for, but she can’t convince herself to feel bad about it. Something shifted, between them, after that Sunday Breakfast. 

Annabeth had invited him up to her apartment afterwards, which, technically it was the first time they’d hung out without any sort of pregnancy related reason. It opened the door to spending time together, just because. In the weeks that have passed since that day, she’s gone to his apartment for dinner twice, and he spent a full Saturday at hers making her watch _The Good Place._

She knows that from the outside it looks a lot like dating, but Annabeth is trying not to overanalyze it.

Because, as dangerous as it is, she _likes_ him. There’s still so much about having this baby that absolutely terrifies her, but when he’s around the edges on her fears are burned off by his warm smiles, and his stupid jokes, and the way her heart flutters every time they make eye contact for too long. She can’t help but be drawn to him, can’t deny that it’s getting easier and easier to trust him - she keeps waiting for the panic to set in, is always surprised to find it hasn’t.

He asks her about her day as they meander down the fluorescently lit aisles, and she argues with him over his choice of cereal, and he helps her pick out a new toothbrush. It's just...nice. 

(After a while, she doesn’t care that every stranger they pass probably assumes they’re together, because some small, hopeful part of her really likes pretending it’s true.)

“Blue food coloring?” She asks skeptically, watching him drop three bottles of the stuff in his basket.

“Mhm.” Percy smirks at her as they continue down the baking aisle. “I’m making cookies this weekend.”

“Blue cookies?”

He laughs. “Okay, so, it’s kind of weird. But my mom and I have this thing with blue food.”

“Okay...why?”

“Well, remember the guy I told you about, Gabe?” 

“Mhm.” Annabeth has to resist smiling to herself, because she knows the story with Percy’s ex-step dad isn’t a happy one, but it had meant a lot to her that he’d shared a little bit of it with her anyway, over the phone in the middle of the night. 

“Well, I don’t remember how they got on the subject, but they got in this fight once when I was a kid, over whether or not food could be blue. Gabe said blue food didn’t exist. After that my mom made _everything_ blue. Like, anything that could have food coloring added to it, she made it blue. Just to stand up to him, a little bit.”

“And then you guys just...never stopped?”

Percy smiles fondly, looking down at his shoes. “Yeah. It became this thing that proved anything was possible, you know? Like, food can be blue.”

“That’s…”

“I know, it’s weird.”

“I was gonna say sweet, actually.” Annabeth replies. She has a feeling there’s more to the story, the way Percy had said his mom had wanted to _stand up to him, a little bit,_ the way he’d previously described Gabe as _not a good guy_. She can feel the question burning a hole in the back of her head, but that probably isn’t something to ask him about in the middle of a Target on a Tuesday night. So she decides to focus on the better part of what he’s told her instead, and says, “Your mom sounds really fucking cool.”

A peal of laughter escapes Percy’s lips. “She is. It’s a family trait, obviously.”

She swats his arm gently as they turn down the next aisle, rolling her eyes.

\---

Eventually they end up passing right next to the baby section, and Percy’s face lights up when she asks him if he wants to look around. They still have five months left, so there’s still plenty of time to research the big things, like cribs and strollers, but there’s no harm in picking up a few little things as they go. 

“Everything is so tiny.” He says, running his thumb over the bottom of a little yellow dress. 

“Yeah. I mean, I know newborns are tiny, but…everything is _so_ tiny.”

“Right? Look at these socks.”

Annabeth shakes her head at the unbelievably small set of powder blue socks he’s pulling down off of the display. He stares down at them for a moment before looking back up to meet her eyes, one corner of his mouth tilting up just slightly.

“We’re really doing this, aren’t we.” 

“We’re really doing this.” She answers, letting a smile spread across her face, too.

He grins. “I’m gonna get the socks.”

Her heart melts at the way he carefully tucks them into his basket, next to his groceries. She has to turn away and focus on the rack of baby clothes behind them before she does something insane, like cry.

\---

She finds a soft set of newborn footie pajamas decorated with little cartoon sharks a few minutes later, and the smile that breaks out on his face when she shows him is dazzling, but it’s nothing compared to the look he gives her when she drops it into her basket.

\---

“Are we gonna find out if it’s a girl or a boy?” He asks while they’re standing in line to check out. 

“I want to.” She replies, looking up and him and tucking a few blonde curls behind one ear. “You?”

Percy considers this for a moment. “Sure, we might as well.”

“I don’t think it matters that much as far as, like, getting ready,” she explains, “but...I don’t think I can handle four months of knowing that I _could_ know something, but I don’t.”

He laughs, and Annabeth can’t help but join him. “Okay. When do we find out then?”

“Pretty soon. End of November, I think?”

“Alright.”

“But we’re not doing one of those gender reveal parties.” 

Percy lets out a deep breath. “Oh, fuck no. I hate those.”

Annabeth laughs. “Me too! It’s like, it’s still a baby. It’s such a weird thing to make such a big deal out of.”

“Exactly!” He exclaims, “Whether or not our kid is born with a penis isn’t going to decide if they like sports, or princesses, or dinosaurs or whatever.”

“Right? And why is all the dinosaur stuff in the boy section anyway? I love dinosaurs.”

“Everyone should love dinosaurs.”

“Yes, they should. Dinosaurs are fucking awesome.” She says and Percy laughs loudly.

They get called forward and start loading their purchases onto the belt, and Annabeth realizes that it’s another one of those moments where Percy just _fits._ Where they agree on some fundamental thing, and she can see a future where they raise this kid together, and it seems so easy.

Of all the strangers she could have met that night, she’s glad it was him.

\---

_“So I was thinking…”_ He says over the phone the next day, as Annabeth is walking home from work.

“Wow, trying new things? I’m proud of you.”

She hears him scoff. _“Okay, pretend you like me for a minute. I was thinking...what if you met my family this weekend? We could just do, like, a chill dinner at my apartment.”_

“Oh, uh…” She stammers, and it’s not that she’s nervous to meet his family...it’s just - okay. Maybe she’s a little nervous to meet his family. Families in general are already a pretty loaded subject for Annabeth, and there’s a lot riding on this one in particular, because whatever happens with her and Percy, his parents will still be this kid’s grandparents. It’s a lot of pressure for a good first impression.

(And Percy _says_ they’re all on board, all excited, but Annabeth can’t totally believe that they won’t resent her a little bit, for the bomb she’s dropped on Percy’s life.)

But, it’s not like she can avoid meeting them forever. And the idea is really pretty thoughtful - meeting them at Percy’s apartment, where she’s comfortable. It feels a little less intimidating.

She takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

_“Yeah? You don’t have to, you know, if you want to wait -”_

“No, I think that’s a good idea.”

 _“Okay,”_ he answers, clearly surprised that he didn’t have to try too hard to convince her. _“Thank you.”_

It’s more important to him than he’s going to admit, she thinks, and suddenly it’s a good thing she’s surrounded by strangers waiting for the crosswalk. She can’t seem to stop smiling like an idiot, even with her nerves about the whole thing tying her stomach in knots.

“You’re gonna have to give me the sparknotes on your family though.” She answers. She’s heard a few stories, but nothing with too much detail. So far, really, all she knows is that Estelle is eight, his stepdad is nice, that his mom is somehow both an angel and a badass, and that they’re the world to Percy.

He laughs. _“Well, my mom is an author, currently working on her second book.”_

“Wow.”

 _“Yeah. Loves blue food, really easy to talk to. Literally half of my friends call her ‘mom’.”_ he says, pride evident in his tone. _“Then there’s my stepdad, Paul. He’s an English teacher. Huge nerd. Get him started on Lord of the Rings and he’ll be your best friend.”_

“Okay, easy.”

_“And then my sister Estelle, I think she might be the coolest 8-year-old on the planet, but...I mean obviously don’t tell her I said that.”_

Annabeth laughs. “I’m not making any promises.”

 _“Ugh, alright. I guess that’s on me.”_ he says, also chuckling. _“She’s gonna lose her mind. Remember when I texted you that I told her about the baby? What was that, like two weeks ago?”_

“Mhm.”

_“She has been bugging me about meeting you every single day since then.”_

“No pressure or anything.” Annabeth replies dryly. 

_“She’s gonna love you.”_

“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”

She can hear his sweet, lopsided smile through his voice.

_“Just trust me.”_

\---

“Uh...Perce? I think maybe these are ruined.”

Percy leaves the counter where he’s been chopping vegetables to inspect the slimy, watery mess Annabeth has been stirring around in a pot on his stove.

“Oh my god. There really is something Annabeth Chase can’t do perfectly.”

“Shut up and help me!”

Percy can’t hold back his laughter. “I’m sorry, it’s just...it’s instant mashed potatoes! Did you follow the instructions on the box?”

“I didn’t think they looked fluffy enough, so I added more milk.”

He takes the spoon from her and stirs a few times, inspecting the disaster she’s created with an amused expression.

“Can you fix it?”

“Uh...no. I think it’s beyond saving,” he says, chuckling. 

Annabeth presses her palms into her eyes, which are already starting to water. Stupid hormones. The last thing she needs is to start crying on top of failing at the one meal prep job she’d been given. Any minute now, Percy’s family is going to arrive, specifically to meet her, and she’s going to be a sobbing mess who can’t even manage to make instant mashed potatoes.

(Pregnancy brain is absolutely real. Nothing else could explain why Annabeth suddenly thought offering to help cook would be a good idea.)

She hears him click off the burner, and then his fingers are wrapping around hers and gently prying her hands from her face. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure Estelle hates mashed potatoes right now, anyway.”

She looks at him skeptically. “Your family is going to hate me.”

That annoying goofy smile of his just grows wider. “They are not going to hate you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can,” he says, confidently. “You’re very likable.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but the frustration is already starting to fade away. “Am not.”

“Are, too. I happen to like you a lot.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I trust your judgement, Seaweed Brain.”

“Annabeth, c’mon.” He says, leaning over so that his eyes are level with hers, still holding both of her hands up in the space between them. His hands are warm. “You’re smart, and funny, and impressive as hell. They’re gonna realize they like you more than me within five minutes.”

The storm in her head stills completely.

He keeps doing things like this. Every time she’s anxious, or upset, or having a hormone induced breakdown, he takes it all in stride. Says the exact right thing with so much conviction and honesty, like it’s nothing, when the words feel so _big_ to her. They settle in her bones, smooth out all her sharp edges.

She presses a kiss to his cheek before she can really think about it.

It’s definitely a step over the line she’d drawn, but it doesn’t disturb the delicate calm between them. She watches Percy’s lips spread into a soft smile. “What was that for?” 

“You think I’m impressive?”

“Of course.” 

His thumb traces a circle on her fingers as time freezes around them, and she’s holding his gaze with her own, for once not feeling the urge to look away. It would be so easy to kiss him, _really_ kiss him, right now. Just six inches closer and she could change everything - press her lips to his, wash away the boundaries she’d drawn. Stop fighting him so much and let it happen.

But she doesn't.

Instead, she watches as his sea-green eyes light up, and his smile slowly transforms into a smirk. She can tell he’s about to tease her before he opens his mouth. “You created something that is somehow both burned _and_ undercooked. It’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.”

She drops her forehead into his chest and laughs.

\---

Dinner with Percy’s family ends up being a much easier experience than she’d expected it to be. Although, really, everything involving Percy since the day he’d met her at that coffee shop has also felt this way, so she shouldn’t be surprised. 

Estelle practically jumps on her as soon as she enters the apartment, her parents trailing behind, yelling “Annabeth! Finally!” 

Annabeth leans down to return her hug, laughing. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“She’s even prettier than you said!” Estelle announces loudly as they break apart, her words obviously intended for Percy. He drags her away quickly, but whatever he says to her is lost to Annabeth as she turns her attention to Percy’s parents. 

After they’ve all been introduced (and Annabeth has been pulled into one of the warmest hugs she’s ever received by Percy’s mom) Paul and Sally turn to hang up their coats. Estelle steps back into Annabeth’s space, eyes sparkling with excitement, Percy behind her with his face turning a lovely shade of red.

Pushing down her nerves, Annabeth leans down to Estelle’s level, and stage-whispers, “He told you he thinks I’m pretty, huh?”

Everyone except Percy laughs, and Estelle grins brightly at her. “I like her,” she says to Percy, giggling. He just shakes his head, eyes narrowed at both of them. She holds out her hand for Annabeth to take. “C’mon.”

Annabeth grins at Percy’s serious expression over her shoulder as she’s pulled away.

Estelle leads them to the living room, to sit on the couch and talk (no brothers allowed) while they wait for dinner to be ready. Annabeth answers all of Estelle’s questions about the baby, and what kind of ice cream she likes, and her favorite cartoons, and Estelle tells her all about her third grade class and all of things she’s excited to do when she’s an aunt.

Annabeth doesn’t have much experience with kids, not since she was one herself, but Estelle is an easy kid to talk to. She’s blunt in a way that only really outgoing kids are, and smart. 

“Last year for a field trip we went to the top of the Empire State Building and saw all of the buildings.” She says after Annabeth explains that she wants to build a skyscraper someday. 

“I’ve never been to the top of the Empire State Building.”

“Really? Never?” 

“Nope.”

“Percy says it’s for tourists,” Estelle says very seriously, tucking a piece of her dark brown hair behind one ear. “But it’s still really really cool. Especially if you like buildings.”

Annabeth hums. “I’ll have to check it out, sometime.”

“Maybe we can take the baby there!”

“Absolutely,” Annabeth replies, her heart melting at Estelle’s excitement. 

She catches Percy staring at them a few times, as he bustles around the kitchen finishing up dinner, with something she can’t quite place in his eyes.

\---

By the time they’re all gathering around the table, Estelle has declared Annabeth as her new favorite person. “Can’t argue with you on that one,” Percy says, winking at Annabeth over Estelle’s head. 

\---

When she was living at home, family dinners had always been stilted, cold - Annabeth spent most of those meals eating as quickly and quietly as she could, hoping that she hadn’t done anything her step-mom could criticize just to make conversation. But the Jackson-Blofis family is the complete opposite, all laughing and teasing each other, welcoming Annabeth and asking her questions about herself without ever putting her on the spot.

All of her worries - that they would grill her about her capability to raise a child, or doubt that Percy was really the father, or expect them to get married - turn out to be totally unfounded. Sally (who insists on being called Sally, and not Mrs. Jackson) doesn’t hide her excitement about becoming a grandmother, but overall she asks more about Annabeth herself than the baby, taking an interest in her job, her hobbies, her time at college. 

Something about Sally - the friendly, laid back way she talks, the kindness in her eyes, the way she asks these questions with genuine interest, the way they don’t make Annabeth feel like she’s taking a test - talking to her feels like being home. 

(It’s more like being home than her actual home, somehow.)

“And what about your family, Annabeth? Are they around here?” Paul asks her halfway through dinner. 

“Oh, uh, no. They live in San Francisco.” Annabeth answers politely, taking a long drink of her water and searching her brain for an inconspicuous way to change the topic. 

But before anyone can respond, Percy saves her, saying easily, “There just weren’t enough skyscrapers for Annabeth in California.” 

“Did you always know you wanted to be an architect?” Sally asks.

“Yeah, since I was a kid.” 

“That’s incredible.” Sally replies, smiling. “When I was a kid I think I wanted to be an archaeologist. Until I found out that archaeologists aren’t all like Indiana Jones.”

Everyone laughs, and Paul leans over to kiss Sally’s temple, says, “Well, I wanted to be Batman, so Indiana Jones is a little more realistic.”

Sally leans into him. “Thanks, honey. For the record I think you would have made a great Batman.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up, Estelle?” Annabeth asks, her heart rate returning to normal at having avoided saying anything else about her family.

“I want to be a pilot! Or maybe a scientist. Or a figure skater.” Estelle answers, and while everyone else’s focus is on her, Annabeth catches Percy’s eye. 

_Thank you,_ she mouths at him. 

Percy rolls his eyes, but his expression is all fondness. He smiles back at her, for just a second, before turning back to his family. “Wait, I thought you wanted to be a Marine Biologist like me! When did that get knocked out of the rankings?”

Annabeth can see where he gets all of his warmth, as Percy’s family starts to tease him over Estelle’s change of heart, the way they all joke around with Annabeth as if they’ve known her for years. It’s easy to get swept up in it, to forget that she’s just meeting these people today, or that she was so nervous to meet them in the first place.

(Annabeth never really felt at home around her family, but she can’t help but wonder if this is how it was supposed to feel.)

Toward the end of dinner, Estelle is talking about her art class, when she mentions a boy’s name and immediately turns beet red, focusing on her plate more than she has all night as her sentence trails off.

“Estelle has a _boyfriend_.” Percy explains to Annabeth, practically singing the words. 

“Shut up! I do not!” Estelle whines.

“Estelle and Jonah, sitting in a tree...”

“Mom!”

“Perseus Jackson, you leave your sister alone.” Sally warns, with a stern tone even as she’s obviously fighting off a smile.

“Wait,” Annabeth cuts in. “Perseus?”

Percy turns from where he’s been sticking his tongue out at Estelle across the table to face Annabeth. “Oh, uh yeah. Percy is short for Perseus.”

“Like the Greek myth?”

“Yep,” Percy answers, “the guy who killed Medusa.”

“Mhm,” Sally hums as she gathers up her plate to take to the kitchen. “I’ve always loved mythology. And Perseus, unlike most of the myths, gets a happy ending.” She smiles and reaches over to ruffle Percy’s hair with her free hand. “I was hoping it’d bring you some luck.”

Percy tilts his head up at her, shrugging one shoulder. “Well it took a while, but I think it did.” 

Sally’s eyes flick to Annabeth for the briefest second before she answers, “I think so, too.”

\---

Sally insists on giving Annabeth her and Paul’s phone numbers before they leave, just in case she needs anything. “Or even if you just want to chat, or complain about Percy, or whatever,” she says, chuckling, and Annabeth notes a kind determination in her eyes that tells her Sally won’t be refused.

And she’s just being nice, Annabeth tells herself. This is normal. But it’s been such a long time since an adult has said something like that to her, _just in case you need anything_. Annabeth is at a loss for words. She just nods as she hands over her phone, carefully focusing every brain cell on not crying. 

It’s just the hormones. Obviously.

\---

After Percy’s family has said their goodbyes, Annabeth settles comfortably on the couch, searching Netflix for the documentary he’d agreed she could make him watch. Percy flops down next to her, holding a container of the blue chocolate chip cookies that he had apparently made that morning and then hid from his family specifically for her. 

She takes one delicious bite before informing him that she won’t be sharing the rest, and he just laughs.

She keeps expecting it to wear off, at some point. This pull she feels toward him. Because it’s easy to like someone on the surface. It’s easy to like the hot guy you picked up at the bar when he loses a game of air hockey gracefully, or sends you a pizza overloaded with olives. But she knows him on more than a surface level, now. She knows his bad taste in stupid action movies, how he sounds when he’s belting out Taylor Swift and dancing around as he cooks dinner, that his full name is _Perseus_ and that he’s obsessed with blue food.

And every new piece of information just makes her like him more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, if going to target isn't something people outside of the midwest do for fun i'm sorry, i have no other frame of reference...don't @ me
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments or over on tumblr at perca-beths! :)


	7. Chapter 7

**(seven)**

Annabeth was seven years old, the first time she ran away from home. 

She’d always been a smart kid, and even then she’d been good at making plans. She spent weeks mapping out the route from her house to the bus station, writing lists of what to pack, working out all of the details of making a clean escape from the house.

She put it all in motion on a Friday afternoon, when she knew her step-mother would be at her book club and her father would be distracted taking care of the 6-month-old twins all by himself. After school, she pulled all of her school supplies from her backpack and then carefully repacked it with everything she thought she’d need - some food, a sleeping bag, all of the cash from her dad’s “rainy day fund” which he hid in his study. Her New York Yankees hat, the only thing she had left of her mom, was securely placed on her head, her little blonde ponytail poking out of the back, and she was ready.

Then she approached her father, holding one crying baby with one hand while also trying to mix a bottle with the other, and asked him if she could spend the night at a friend’s house.

She had been ready with a backstory on which friend, where they lived, when she would be home...but she hadn’t needed any of it. Frederick was so overwhelmed with the twins, he barely looked at her as he waved her out the door. Said “That’s nice, kiddo. Have fun,” and she was free.

Getting a bus ticket was another obstacle, but it was no match for Annabeth. She chose the most overworked, bored looking cashier, and lied her way through it easily, pointing at a couple of blonde strangers seated on a bench a few feet away and claiming they were her parents, that they’d wanted her to practice purchasing her own ticket. 

She was tall, for her age, so when anyone asked she said she was eleven, and they believed her. People felt more comfortable seeing her on her own when they thought she was eleven. She took a seat by the window, toward the back, and watched the familiar streets of her hometown glide by around her. She felt so free, in that moment, she thought that if the bus broke down she would simply grow wings and fly the rest of the way to New York City. 

But unfortunately, her plan wasn’t quite perfect. Bus tickets were more expensive than she’d thought, and her little stash of stolen money was only able to get her to Richmond.

It was her second night of hiding out in an alley while she tried to rework her plan, and Annabeth was a tough kid, but even she had to admit her chances weren’t looking good. One more night, maybe two, and she’d probably have to turn herself in and go back home before she starved to death. But she could steal food, if she needed to. She just needed to figure out how to get another 300 miles to New York. Her mother must be there, somewhere. Everything would be fine once she made it to New York. 

She was sitting with her head in her hands, thinking over her options, when two people entered the alley. She backed up against the brick wall at the back, clutching the hammer she’d stolen from her dad’s toolbox, and waited with her heart pounding in her ears.

“Is someone back there?” She heard the taller one say.

“Don’t come any closer!” Annabeth shouted, trying to make herself seem as old and as threatening as possible.

The two of them stepped forward into a patch of moonlight, and she realized they were both kids. Maybe a few years older than her, but not adults. A teenage boy with sandy blonde hair and a girl who looked like she’d just stepped out of an ad for Hot Topic - black clothes, black hair, heavy eyeliner around her bright electric blue eyes.

“It’s a little kid,” the girl said to her friend.

“Thalia, we can’t -”

“Hey,” the girl - Thalia - said, ignoring her friend’s protests and focusing on Annabeth, holding both hands up, palms out. “I’m Thalia, this is Luke.” Annabeth held her hammer up a little higher, and Thalia continued with an even softer tone, “It’s okay, we’re not gonna hurt you.”

Annabeth’s eyes darted between them, unsure if this was some kind of trick.

Thalia took a slow step forward. “Are you out here by yourself?”

“Don’t send me back,” Annabeth pleaded, still holding up her weapon. “I can’t go back home.”

Thalia smiled. “We don’t want to go back to our homes, either. Why don’t you come with us?”

“Thalia -” Luke started, but the girl just cut him off, her tone harsh.

“She’s a little kid, Luke. We have to help her.”

Luke sighed, shaking his head, but when he turned toward Annabeth he spoke with the same level of kindness in his voice Thalia had used. “What’s your name?”

“Annabeth.”

“Nice name.” He smiled, and Annabeth dropped the hammer down to her side. It was a nice smile. “We have a place not too far from here, where we’re staying for a bit. You should come with us.”

“You’re...you’re not going to take me back to my family?” Annabeth asked. “You promise?”

“Promise,” Luke said, looking to Thalia, who nodded reassuringly.

“You can join our family.” She said. And Annabeth did.

Thalia’s voice is the thing that always floats up out of the back of her head, now.  _ You can join our family. _

Sometimes, she wishes she hadn’t. 

\---   
  


Annabeth sighs and pulls her gaze away from the crack in her ceiling to check the time again. She really needs to get out of bed, or she’s going to be late to work.

This happens sometimes - waking up already weighed down by her memories of Thalia and Luke, with a familiar grief that seeps right into her bones. She’s never sure what’s caused it. Maybe she had a dream about them, or maybe it’s just the weather getting colder. Halloween is tomorrow, so maybe it’s just that. It always was Thalia’s favorite.

Days like this used to happen more often, but Annabeth supposes that’s something to expect, after almost five years. Every year it seems like she can go longer and longer without thinking about them, but that realization just makes guilt settle heavily in the pit of her stomach, until she’s scrolling back through the oldest videos on her phone, just to remind herself how Thalia’s voice sounded. She’ll probably spend the rest of her life like this, torn between needing to remember every detail and wanting so desperately to forget.

She just wishes she didn’t feel so...stuck, on days like today. She’ll spend all day trying, but she can never seem to think her way out of that alley, that hospital room, that apartment. 

_ You can join our family.  _

If she could, she’d give up. Let her sadness pin her down, and spend the whole day in bed. But she has work, and at noon she’s meeting Percy for another doctors appointment. No time for wallowing. 

It’s her third appointment, and Percy hasn’t opted out yet, despite her protests that they’re mostly just routine checkups until the ultrasound at the end of November. She just can’t seem to argue with the fact that she does actually like having him there.

If she’s honest, the same is true for most situations. Grocery shopping, a few lunch breaks at work - he even went with her to the laundromat last weekend. He showed her a bunch of dumb videos on his phone and they argued about whether or not ghosts are real while her clothes tumbled around in a dryer. As cliche as she knows it sounds, she can’t deny that he makes everything better.

Today though, this storm cloud that she knows will be hanging over her head all day - it might be too much to expect him to brighten up. But it’s not like she can cancel her appointment, so she’ll just have to let it be. 

If she can just make it to that appointment, she bargains with herself, she doesn’t have to go back to work after. It’s Friday, no one will care. Then she can crawl back in bed, write off the entire rest of the weekend, wallow all she wants.

And that’s the only thing that motivates her to drag herself to the shower.

\---

Of course, Percy has other plans.

He’s waiting for her right outside the clinic when she arrives, and they’re only seated in the waiting room for about two minutes when he leans over and asks, “Is everything okay?”

None of her coworkers had noticed her mood all morning. When did he get so good at reading her? 

_ You can join our family.  _

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

Percy’s eyebrows scrunch together in the way she’s noticed they do when he’s worried. He opens his mouth, probably to push her on it, when she’s saved by the nurse calling them back.

The appointment is nothing special, just checking her blood pressure, making sure she’s keeping up with her vitamins and isn’t jumping on trampolines or hanging out in hot tubs. She tries to keep her expression neutral, but she doesn’t miss the way Percy watches her with concern the entire time.

He finally confronts her when they’ve left the clinic, ducking his head so she has to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

_ You can join our family.  _

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

Percy stares back patiently, raising one eyebrow to show that he doesn’t buy it.

She sighs. This is what she’d been dreading about meeting him today. “It’s not something you need to worry about. It’s just...stuff from my past.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m just gonna go home, okay?”

He nods, eyes down on the sidewalk for a moment. “Or…” he says, taking one step closer to her, “you could come with me.”

She blinks at him. “Come with you where?”

The corner of his mouth ticks up. “You’ll see.”

“I don’t know…”

“Would a distraction help?”

She searches his sea-green eyes for a moment, and comes up with nothing but kindness, and genuine concern, and something else she’s beginning to get a little bit addicted to. She doesn’t honestly think Percy can make her feel any better, but spending the afternoon in bed alone suddenly doesn’t sound as appealing.

“Maybe.”

“Then let’s go.”

\---

She thinks about telling him a few times, as they sit next to each other on the subway, but the words are too heavy in her chest.

\---

Finally, they appear to be reaching their destination.

“The Aquarium?” Annabeth asks skeptically.

“Just trust me,” he replies as they join the line for admission tickets. She’s so busy turning over those words - because it hits her all of the sudden that she  _ does  _ trust him, that she’s let him lead her all the way here without questioning it - she doesn’t notice that they’ve reached the front of the line until he’s already paid for her admission ticket.

And then she doesn’t have time to worry about when it was that she started trusting him, because he’s pushing her determinedly into a large, darkly lit tunnel surrounded by water on all sides, casting everything in an ethereal blue hue through the glass. 

She’s stunned for a moment at the sheer  _ scale _ of the place, of the hundreds of fish swimming peacefully by all around her. She catches Percy watching her with a sweet smile on his face as she takes it all in, and then she’s treated to the Percy Jackson New York Aquarium tour. 

It’s very comprehensive, with scientific facts as well as a few dumb jokes, and his own personal opinions on what kind of personalities he imagines the different types of fish having. He doesn’t seem to expect Annabeth to give any kind of feedback, as he talks, and it’s nice. She lets herself get lost in it, like she’s stepped into a marine life documentary. 

An hour later, Annabeth realizes that at some point while she’s been walking around and listening to Percy talk, the fist that had been closed so tightly around her heart this morning has loosened its grip. 

He’s smiling at her, explaining the difference between stingrays and manta rays. And as she watches him, the electric blue of Thalia’s eyes is replaced in her head with the soft, shifting aquamarine of the light refracting through the water to land on Percy’s face. And for the first time in years, she thinks it’s not such a bad thing, to let go of some of that weight.

_ You can join our family.  _

Or to let someone else help her carry it.

She reaches out slowly and slips her hand into his, lacing their fingers together. He falls silent, watching her carefully. It’s the first thing she’s offered in terms of communication with him since they got here. She takes a deep breath, eyes focused on the expanse of water on the other side of the glass in front of her. 

“I had this friend, she was...basically a sister to me.” She starts, just above a whisper. “And uh...she died, a few years ago. Unexpectedly.”

She doesn’t have the strength to say Thalia’s name out loud, today, but Percy doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t turn to look at his face, but he runs his thumb up and down soothingly over hers. Patiently reminding her he’s there.

“Some days it’s just hard to forget, you know?” 

“Yeah,” he says, his voice soft, laced with kindness. “Do you want to go somewhere else? Talk about it?” He steps a hair closer, so their arms are connected from wrist to shoulder, side by side.

Annabeth shakes her head, watches a stingray glide across the space in front of them. “Not today. This is helping, though. Keep going?”

She looks at him then, and his face is just so sweet, and caring, and -

“Okay,” he says, and she thinks maybe if she asked him for his heart he wouldn’t hesitate to reach into his chest and pull it out for her. 

“So, Stingrays are actually related to sharks,” he starts, and she turns her attention back to the glass, drops her head onto his shoulder, focusing carefully on every word. She lets herself imagine them coming back here in a few years - standing in this same spot, but with a toddler in Percy’s arms. Maybe he’d point at the glass, softly explain the names of the different animals for their child, and maybe his other hand would be holding hers like it is now. She thinks he’d like that. 

She thinks she would, too.

He pauses, and she feels his lips press against her hair for just a split second before he turns so that his cheek is resting on top of her head, and then he’s back, the soft rumble of his voice wrapping around her like a warm blanket and his hand still so solid in hers.

\---

That night she goes to bed early, sleeps in late, and somehow doesn’t have any nightmares - just a strangely vivid dream that she’s laying in a bubble at the bottom of the ocean with Percy, watching fish drift calmly by, with their fingers laced together.

She feels remarkably better, almost normal even, that afternoon as she opens the door to her apartment for him. Since all of Annabeth’s friends are spending most of the day at a Halloween bar crawl, and she can’t drink, Percy thought it was only fair that he spend the holiday on her couch, sober, watching scary movies with her in solidarity. Bars aren’t really his scene anyway, he says, but Annabeth thinks it probably has more to do with her confession yesterday than anything else.

Either way, the childlike joy on his face as he scrolls through the horror section of Netflix on her television makes her happy he came.

“How scary are we thinking?” He asks, eyes screwed up in concentration. “Like, Halloweentown scary? Or might legitimately give me nightmares later, scary?”

Annabeth laughs as she returns to the couch with a large bowl full of popcorn. “You can’t seriously tell me Halloweentown is considered scary in any capacity.”

“Hey, it scared me as a child! That theater scene messed me up.”

“We’re not kids anymore. Find something actually scary.”

Percy sighs. “Fine, fine. But we’re watching Halloweentown before I have to walk home in the dark.”

She rolls her eyes at him fondly. “Deal.”

\---

“Patrick is a nice name,” she says, laying across her couch with her feet in Percy’s lap as the credits for  _ The Conjuring _ start rolling. This is the position they’d settled into halfway through the movie, and it’s probably way too intimate, almost like cuddling, but it doesn’t feel wrong. Something changed yesterday, when they left the Stingray Exhibit and just didn’t stop holding hands. 

Percy smiles at her from the other end of the couch, his thumb tapping her ankle from where his hand has been warmly wrapped around it. “For the baby?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t hate it.”

She’s been keeping a few name options in the back of her head, preparing for the second half of her pregnancy, when they know if they’re having a boy or a girl and will have to sit down and make a decision. “We’ll have to talk names next month.”

“Yeah. We have time. But, uh...I guess we do still have a lot of stuff to figure out.”

She hums, thinking of the list she has in her planner full of things she needs to figure out before April that seems to get longer every day. “Yeah, we do.”

“Like...Where is the baby going to live?”

She twists her body so that she can face him without sitting up. “I guess with me, right? At the beginning, anyway.”

“Yeah. Here, though?”

“I talked to Piper about it a little bit. She was already planning on moving in with Jason in June when our lease is up, but I don’t think I can really afford this place by myself, so I might have to look for something smaller.”

While she’s been talking, her hand has been absentmindedly trailing along the swell of her stomach. It still isn’t immediately noticeable, in most of her clothes, but it’s definitely there. Percy watches the movement with a dreamy smile for a moment before he speaks.

“I can help, too.”

“You don’t -”

“Just if you can’t find something better.” He says it in an offhand way, like helping her with rent isn’t a big deal, to him. Her hand stills and rests over her bellybutton. She’s never been great at accepting help, but she supposes this was kind of the point of telling him about the baby, all those weeks ago. So she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

“Okay.” She breathes out, he’s quiet for a moment, so she decides to continue. “And then, you know, when they’re older we can figure out some kind of schedule. Like trade weekends, or something.”

Percy nods, but his shoulders slump, just slightly, and the way he moves his eyes down to the floor makes her think something she’s said has upset him. “Yeah.”

He’s uncharacteristically quiet, after that. “Is that okay?” She asks.

“Yeah, yeah.” He says, clearing his throat. “Uh, what about the, uh, the last name?”

She’s a little jarred by the sudden change in topic, but he never pushes her too hard to talk about things, so pushing him on this feels against the rules, somehow.

“Oh. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” she tells him honestly, “I kind of just assumed it would be Chase.”

His expression darkens a little more. “What do you think about doing a hyphen?” He asks, and his fingers nervously play with a loose thread on the bottom of her sweatpants. “Like Jackson-Chase? Chase-Jackson?”

Granted, she hadn’t given it much thought, but his suggestion is a surprise. She really hadn’t expected him to care. 

(Although, really, she hadn’t expected to be in a position to discuss this with him at all, when she called him that day back in August. She’d thought maybe he’d send a check once and a while, maybe show up to pick up the baby for the day twice a month or something - she never would have guessed that he’d be here, almost three months later, watching movies with her on her couch. That he’d fit himself into her life like a missing puzzle piece before the baby was even born.)

“I take it you’re...not okay with it just being Chase?” She asks, not unkindly. She’s not opposed to a hyphen, necessarily, but she’s curious about why he wants one.

“I would like my last name in there somewhere, yeah.” Percy replies, twisting the loose thread on her pants around one finger. 

“You’re not gonna argue for just Jackson?”

He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I figured that might be asking too much.”

She studies him for a moment, takes in the way he’s tensed up, his fingers fiddling nervously. “It’s really important to you, isn’t it?”

“It is.” He answers, and she can see the determination in his eyes, underneath the nervousness. He’s always been very accommodating, content to follow Annabeth’s lead, but she’s learned he can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be. And apparently this is something he’s willing to be stubborn about.

Her head is still spinning, trying to work out his motivation - but the second she sees that determination in his eyes, it seems obvious. It’s something concrete to connect him to the baby. A shared last name.

It’s something permanent.

“Okay.” She responds. “We can figure something out.” 

Percy breathes out a sigh of relief, his hand squeezing her ankle gently. “Thank you,” he says, with more emotion in his eyes than she knows what to do with. And, god, he really cares about having the same last name as the baby, wants that tangible thing that shows everyone else that it’s his kid. Annabeth doesn’t know what to do with that either, but it makes her heart feel like it’s going to explode.

\---

When Annabeth opens her eyes, Halloweentown is playing softly on her television, lighting up her dark living room with the very theater scene Percy had mentioned earlier. 

Hours earlier, judging by the pitch black of the sky outside the window.

Annabeth stretches as she scans the room. She’s alone on the couch where she unintentionally fell asleep in the middle of  _ Insidious 2, _ but the armchair isn’t empty anymore, as Jason is currently slumped over in it awkwardly, fast asleep.

He’s still in the costume he’d left in that morning with Piper, Fred from Scooby Doo - although his ascot is missing. They can’t have come home very long ago, then, she thinks as she sits up. She’s just wondering if Piper had gone to bed and been too drunk to realize she forgot her boyfriend when she hears her best friend stifle a laugh from the kitchen.

She makes her way there and finds Piper - still in her purple Daphne dress, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her talking animatedly to Percy, who stands with his back to Annabeth at the stove, cooking,

“No really, I wish you could have seen it.” Piper is saying, in an attempt at a whisper that’s actually pretty good for how drunk she definitely is. “He looked  _ exactly _ like Salt Bae. He had one of those big things of salt, and we got him to pour salt on us and he did the whole thing -” Piper gestures with her hand cocked back, sprinkling imaginary salt just like the Salt Bae meme. “It was the best costume I’ve ever seen.”

Percy laughs quietly. “You let a stranger pour salt on your head?”

“Of course we did, Jackson. It was Salt Bae! I think it’s gonna bring me good luck.”

Percy turns then, to shake his head disapprovingly at Piper, and catches Annabeth standing in the doorway.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he says, grinning.

“Beth!” Piper shouts, forgetting to keep her voice down and most likely waking Jason. She stands and drifts over to where Annabeth is standing to wrap her arms around Annabeth’s shoulders, dropping one head down and leaning on her heavily. 

“Did you have fun?” She asks, reaching up one hand to hold onto Piper’s arm where it rests on her collarbone.

“So much fun. I missed you so much though. Clarisse doesn’t like complimenting random women we meet in the bathroom with me like you do.”

“Sorry, Pipes.” Annabeth laughs. “I missed you too.”

Piper turns her attention toward Percy then, where he’s leaning against the counter next to the stove watching them with a bemused smile on his face. “Percy  _ Jackson _ ,” she whispers conspiratorially, pointing at him with a swaying finger, “is making me eggs and toast, because he says if I eat them before I go to sleep I won’t be hungover tomorrow.”

“Works every time, I swear.” Percy chimes in from the stove. “And you forgot to mention that we’ve become best friends.”

“Right,” Piper says seriously, her head rolling off Annabeth’s shoulder to look at her. “Percy listened to me talk about New Girl for like a million years earlier. So we’re best friends now.”

Percy laughs from the other side of the kitchen. “Do you want some, Annabeth?”

She nods at him, because they smell  _ amazing _ and because she doesn’t think she can say no to him when he smiles at her like that, like she’s just held out the entire world on a string for him even though literally all she’s done is wake up and shuffle into the kitchen. 

“Keep him.” Piper whispers into her ear before she extracts herself to stumble back to her chair.

Annabeth watches as Percy carefully transfers the egg he’d been cooking onto a plate, then reaches up to pull the salt and pepper out of her cupboard, like he’s always belonged here in her apartment, cooking breakfast for her drunk best friend at eleven at night.

_ Okay.  _ She wants to say.  _ I will.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shoutout to the random stranger I saw dressed as Salt Bae on a bar crawl one time! He lives in my head rent free.
> 
> Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone has a great 2021 ahead of them. <3 As always thank you so much for reading and commenting and talking to me on tumblr, you guys are the best!


	8. Chapter 8

**(eight)**

They’re just getting into Percy’s apartment one Saturday in November, after catching a matinee showing of a movie he’d wanted to see, when his phone starts ringing. 

“My boss,” Percy says, checking the caller ID. “Just a sec.” 

He jogs off to his bedroom to take the call, leaving Annabeth to strip out of her coat and toe off her boots. The deal was that if she went with him to see that terrible action movie, then she could choose any restaurant and he would pay for their takeout order when they got back, so she crosses to the drawer in his kitchen where he’s stuffed all of his to-go menus and starts rifling through them.

The movie hadn’t been that bad, she thinks, but to be fair she hadn’t been paying much attention. She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes from drifting over to Percy every few minutes. He looked good. He was wearing a navy blue sweater that hugged the muscles of his arms nicely, and the light from the movie screen gave her a perfect view of his broad shoulders, the tan skin of his neck, and the sharp angle of his jaw...It was hardly her fault.

She’s just made her decision and is debating over what she wants to order when he returns. “Hey,” she says, dropping the menu she’d been reading and leaning back against the counter. “What did your boss want?”

“Well…” Percy grins, his eyes a little wild, “we got the grant.”

Annabeth’s eyes pop open wide. It’s something Percy’s been talking about for weeks - a big research project his team has been trying to get funded, all depending on a very competitive grant. From what she’s gathered from Percy, it’s a huge deal that they got it, and she knows how important it is to him. “You did?!” 

He lets out a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“Oh my god! Percy!” She surges forward, throwing her arms around his neck. “That’s amazing!”

Percy’s arms wrap around her waist, his boisterous laugh filling the apartment as he rocks back, lifting Annabeth a few inches off the floor.

When her feet touch the ground again, she pulls back and meets his eyes, sparkling back at her. The overwhelming joy on his face sends her heart spinning. 

“Congratulations,” she says, suddenly breathless as she realizes how close he still is.

“Thank you,” he breathes out, and from the way his pupils have blown out she thinks he must be just as affected by her as she is by him.

Neither of them move for what’s definitely too long to be standing as close as they are, eyes glued to each other. But she can’t help it - there’s something so addicting about being in Percy’s space, like this, with his arms tightly around her. She doesn’t want to leave. His gaze flicks down to her lips, so fast she almost misses it, and for one mad second she thinks _fuck it._ It’s so much work, pushing him away. All she has to do is lean forward, press up onto her toes, let her lips meet his -

But then, just as quickly, his expression darkens as he shakes his head, pulling back from her a little bit more. She watches his eyebrows scrunch together, his mouth pulling down into a frown. “Is something wrong?” 

“Um…No, no, it’s just,” He swallows, avoids looking at her for a moment before he speaks again. “Annabeth...what are we doing?”

“Hugging? You got your grant -”

“No, I mean…” He lets out a frustrated sigh, and his eyes search hers for a moment. He dips his head, gesturing at the way she’s still in his space, their arms still around each other. “What are we doing?”

Annabeth freezes. His arms are still securely around her waist, but...was this too much? Did she overstep? “Oh.” She says, carefully releasing his neck and stepping out of his space. “Uh, I don’t...I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable -” 

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Percy says softly, but he lets his hands release her, too. It feels like the temperature of the room drops ten degrees.

“What do you mean, then?”

He shrugs one shoulder, eyes still glued to her face. “I haven’t changed my mind, about us.”

Annabeth’s breath hitches, remembering that night on her front steps. That kiss that plays on a loop in her head, no matter how hard she tries to stop it. 

( _What if we breakup?_ she’d asked him, and he’d just smiled like the answer was so easy. _What if we don’t?_ ) 

“I haven’t,” he repeats, his voice barely a whisper. “Have you?”

Her heart jumps up into her mouth. It’s not that she hasn’t thought about changing her mind. She thinks about it all the time - when he calls her on his lunch break to ask if her client had any more unreasonable problems with the layout of their master bath, when he trades her the broccoli in his fried rice for her mushrooms, when he gives her one of those lopsided smiles, and her heart _melts_ and she can see a future where everything works. And she knows, deep down, that she wants that future. Of course she does. 

But Annabeth learned a long time ago that wanting things is dangerous. It just makes it hurt more when she can’t have them.

Panic seizes around her heart and squeezes tightly. “Percy, we can’t -”

“Why can’t we?”

“I -” Her throat closes up. And part of her wants to tell him the truth. Admit that she does want to be with him, maybe more than anything. That every day she takes another step forward on a path that she knows leads to him. That she lies awake at night turning over that same question, _why can’t we_ , and sometimes she comes to the conclusion that they can. That he’s inevitable.

But there are just as many nights that she tries to close that door completely, too weary of what lays on the other side of it, and she tells herself it’s for the best.

Her mind is racing, but she can’t find a way to say any of it. She gestures vaguely at the space between them, but no words come.

“It’s just...I don’t want to be a weekend dad.” Percy continues, his voice raw. “I don’t want to have to set up a schedule with you, where we trade off days and we have two of every holiday and whatever. I don’t want to miss half our kid’s life, and…and I know you said you just want to be friends but then you do stuff like this, and...I start to think maybe it could happen. And things wouldn’t have to be like that, because we would just be together.” 

She feels like she’s going to be sick as the realization washes over her - it’s not enough for him, if she’s too broken for a romantic relationship. Her voice sounds empty and detached when she finally speaks. “I don’t know what you want from me.” 

“Why can’t we just try?” He pleads, eyebrows creased together, slowly taking half a step toward her. “I’m not trying to like, give you an ultimatum or something - I just...why can’t we give it a shot?”

This conversation is too much, she’s too caught off guard. She feels exposed, like he’s trying to cut her open and find more, to scrutinize all the messy parts of herself she’s been keeping from him. What she’s been giving him isn’t enough, anymore. She’s not enough. And if they got together, if they tried...he’d figure that out sooner or later. And then he’d leave.

_You can join our family._

Her tone is harsher and higher pitched than she means it to be. “Because there’s too much that could go wrong, because if you - if you leave then it’s not just me that’s getting left behind -”

“Whoa, what?” His eyes flash with something like anger and she knows she’s hit a nerve. “Who says I’m leaving? Have I done anything to make you think I want to leave?”

“No, but…I don’t know. I’ve only known you for three months.”

Percy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously? You - you have to know that whatever happened with us I wouldn’t leave my kid, by now. You can’t actually think that low of me.”

There’s more venom in his voice than she’s ever heard. He’s hurt - and really, she’s not even sure why she said that. Even now, it doesn’t feel true. She’s untethered, spiraling out of control, but her voice keeps getting louder, regardless, until she’s actually shouting at him. “It’s more complicated than that!”

“It’s not, though!” He calls back, his hands running through his hair. “Fuck, Annabeth - you keep saying things are complicated but you’re the one making it complicated. It’s simple, to me. We just have to try.”

“You say that like it’s so easy! Like, what, we just get married? Ride off into the sunset?”

“Why not?” 

“Why not?” She repeats at him, her voice raising up an octave. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Okay fine, but why can’t we just give it a shot?”

“We can’t!” She shouts back, “it’d be stupid, and selfish, and -”

“You’re just scared.” He says, crossing his arms over his chest, and she feels the last of her patience stretch to its breaking point, cold fury taking control of her words.

“I’m not scared - I’m trying to be practical! One of us has to be the adult here, Percy. I’m trying to put our kid first.”

“Don’t use the baby as an excuse -”

“I’m not using the baby as an excuse because I have nothing to excuse myself for! I’m making the responsible choice.”

Percy's face drops into his hands, groans, “Oh my god, you’re so stubborn.” 

“Because I’m right, and you know I am.”

“You don’t -” He stops himself from finishing his sentence with a frustrated sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“Well then it’s a good thing I don’t want to be with you, isn’t it.” She snaps, and she regrets the words the second they’re out of her mouth. 

Percy looks like he’s been slapped. “Oh is that it?” He says, voice low as his eyes burn into hers. He gestures between them with one hand. “This is how you treat people you don’t want to be with?”

“Okay,” she takes a step back, looking everywhere but directly at him. Everything’s fucked, and she needs to put some space between them before she loses her mind. “I can’t do this. I don’t have to fucking explain myself to you. I don’t owe you anything.” She brushes past him and storms out of his apartment, stopping only for a second to grab her boots off of the floor, slamming the door behind her.

Her fury carries her to the end of the hallway and into the stairwell, but the second the door closes she’s drained of all energy, her mood swing disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. In the quiet of the stairwell, without his face so angry and hurt in front of her, she feels like an idiot. _Why are you the one storming off?_ She wants to scream at herself. _You’re doing this to yourself._

Because he had a point, didn’t he? Lately she’s been looking for any excuse to touch him - holding his hand as they walk down the street, leaning into him on the subway, pressing her arm up against his at the movie theater - and insisting that they’ll never be together at the same time. She’s been sending him mixed signals for weeks, for _months_ , when she knows he wants to be with her. She’s the one who rejected him. 

She drops her boots on the floor, sits on the second to last step of the stairs that lead to the floor above Percy’s, and holds her face in her hands. She feels cruel. 

And Percy - who would drop everything to take her to the aquarium to make her feel better, who bakes her blue cookies, and makes her laugh more than anyone she’s ever met - he doesn’t deserve cruelty. From anyone.

Guilt rolls heavily in her stomach. He’d sounded so broken. _Have I done anything to make you think I want to leave?_

Tears start spilling out of her eyes at the possibility that she’s just fucked everything up. That he’s done nothing but try to prove, over and over, that he means it when he says he’s going to stay, and it’s not his fault that she’s too broken to believe it. He’s been nothing but good to her, and she…

When she’s not lying to herself, she can admit it: he’s the best thing in her life, right now. 

And she’s ruined it.

She lets herself stay there for a few more minutes, crying with her face still hidden in her hands, when suddenly the door to the stairwell opens. Percy, holding her coat in his hands and looking very surprised to see her there. Quickly, she wipes her tear stained cheeks with both hands. 

“Hey,” he says, still frozen in the doorway. “You, uh...forgot your coat.”

“Oh.”

After everything she’s said, after the way she’d stormed out of his apartment - he was going to chase after her just to keep her from getting cold.

She’s such an asshole.

“I’m sorry I -”

“I didn’t -”

They both speak at the same time, and Percy laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

She rolls her eyes at him, a bittersweet smile spreading on her face. She pats the space on the step to her right, and he crosses the landing to sit down next to her slowly.

She swallows down the lump in her throat. “I didn’t mean what I said.” She says, once he’s settled beside her, his shoulder just barely brushing hers.

“Which part?”

“Basically all of it. But mostly the last thing.”

Percy nods, watching the floor for a moment before he speaks again. “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I’ve just been frustrated...but that’s not your fault. I didn’t mean to blow up like that, I’m sorry.”

She bumps his shoulder with hers. “I didn’t mean to blow up, either.”

He meets her eyes, his expression so open, and smiles. His arm lifts up to wrap around her shoulders, and she leans into him, her arms around his chest.

“Annabeth…” he says after a few minutes, his tone much lighter than it was inside his apartment, “you’re confusing the hell out of me here.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I don’t want to confuse you.” She takes a deep breath, feels his thumb rub a small circle on her shoulder. “It’s just that...I’ve been let down by people a lot.”

“Have I let you down?” He asks, but unlike before it doesn’t sound like an accusation. It’s softer, kinder.

“No." She tells him honestly. "But I have a hard time trusting people, I guess. I don’t do... _this_. Easier to just push everyone away, you know? So sometimes I’m an asshole.”

She feels his laughter rumble softly in his chest. “You’re not an asshole.”

“No, it’s okay. I know I was an asshole. I’m just trying to explain the reasoning.”

Percy hums. “I still disagree but...I get it.” He drops his head onto the top of hers where it rests on his shoulder. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy, though.”

She closes her eyes, slowly takes a deep breath, inhaling the clean scent of his laundry detergent, and the saltwater that seems to have seeped into his skin, and _Percy._ Focuses on the way his thumb rubs a delicate pattern on her shoulder. Warmth flooding into the hollow spaces between her bones.

Here in this quiet, badly lit stairwell, her sock clad feet on the cold concrete floor - she thinks she could love him. Maybe. 

The thought sends a wave of panic through her, so she tucks it away carefully between her ribs to be examined later, before it can ruin this precarious peace that they’re in, and says, “Can we go back to your apartment?” 

“Please.”

He stands first, still holding her coat in one hand and offering the other one to help her up. Once she’s on her feet, she closes the distance between them, and his arms open automatically. She buries her face in his shirt, looping her arms around his waist as he wraps his snugly around her shoulders. 

And she knows she’s an absolute mess, right now; that her face is puffy from crying, and she’s likely staining his shirt with her running mascara, and the curve of her stomach is just enough that their hips can’t quite line up the way they’re supposed to, but Annabeth doesn't care. Because _this_ \- Percy’s arms so solid and warm around her shoulders, pulling her in just as tightly as she’s holding him like they can’t get close enough, the steady sound of his heartbeat against her ear - this is right. They just fit.

“Hey,” he whispers against the crown of her head, “we can go back to how things were. If you really just want to be friends, I can live with that.”  
There’s an instant relief that comes from his words, for the part of her that’s been begging herself not to get too close since she met him. She could give into that fear, and maybe she still wouldn’t lose him. And yet...

She pulls back, just enough to meet his eyes without letting go, and decides to be brave. Just a little bit. 

“That’s not what I want.”

His eyes flash with something like shock, then hope, before turning more serious. “Annabeth -”

“Can you just be patient with me?”

The smile that slowly spreads across his face is the first ray of sunlight after a storm, cutting through all the dark grey, shining right on her heart. 

“I can do that.”

She drops her face back into his chest, reveling in the warmth spreading down to her toes. “Thank you. Sorry I ruined your good news.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.” He says, running his hand soothingly up and down her back once. 

They break apart slowly, still close together as he stoops down to grab her boots and follows her through the door. “Hey, Annabeth?” 

“Hmm?”

“I think we just had our first fight.” He says, smirking.

“Shut up.” She groans, and reaches out to pinch his side.

He laughs, squirming away from her fingers. “Alright, alright.”

\---

It’s a nice night, after. It’s different, less tense and somehow more charged, but nice.

They order their dinner, eat it sitting unnecessarily close together on his couch, their knees touching, with a true crime documentary playing in the background that Annabeth is barely paying attention to because she can't stop her gaze from flicking over to Percy every few minutes. 

Every time one of them moves, they get a little bit closer together - her shoulder pressed up against his, then his hand on her knee, then her head on his shoulder - until they end up settled with his arm around her shoulders and her head on his chest, right over his heart. “Is this okay?” He asks her once, his voice rumbling in his chest under her ear.

She nods, slides her arm around his torso, anchoring herself to him in one more place.

They don’t talk again, after that. 

\---

“I should probably get going before it gets too late.” She says, once the documentary has finished playing and the sky outside Percy’s window has become an inky black.

“Okay.” He agrees, and lifts his arm from around her shoulders to stretch it above his head. “Can I walk you home?”

“Yeah.”

They stand, pulling on their shoes and grabbing their coats from the hooks by Percy’s front door. Twenty minutes from now, she thinks, she’ll say goodbye to Percy at the door to her building, climb the stairs alone, and enter her dark, quiet apartment. It’ll be empty, because Piper and Jason are visiting Piper’s dad at a cabin upstate for the weekend. Usually she would be looking forward to the time alone when Piper wasn’t in town, but now, she can’t help thinking that her apartment will feel too cold, without Percy.

She decides not to let herself overthink it.

“And then, you know…” she says, fiddling with the zipper on her coat instead of looking at him. “Maybe when we get there...you could just stay?”

He freezes, still holding the beanie he’d been about to pull onto his head. “Like, sleep over?”

“Yeah.”

“Annabeth, you don’t have to, like...offer me anything. We’re okay.”

“I know.” She raises her chin, holds his gaze. “I still want you to.”

“But is it because you feel bad about what happened earlier?”

“No.” 

And it isn’t, really. She just...wants him around. And if he can be patient, then maybe she can try to meet him halfway, and take one more step forward. 

(If she’s honest, taking steps forward with Percy really just boils down to letting herself have something she wants.)

Percy’s eyes narrow as he looks at her, trying to work out whether or not he’s just stepped into a trap. “You really want me to?”

“Mhm.”

“Just to sleep.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Obviously just to sleep.”

A moment rolls by as he considers her offer, searching her face like he’s expecting her to tell him she’s joking.

“Okay...” He says, still hesitant.

“Okay. Good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh my god, yes, I’m sure.” She gives him a hard look. “But I’m about to change my mind because you’re so annoying.” 

He laughs with his whole body, throwing his head back. “Okay, okay. Just checking.” 

“Are you gonna grab some clothes, then, or…?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” He scrambles, hurrying off to his bedroom and returning a few minutes later with a small duffel bag. And he still would have locked up his apartment, if he’d just been planning on walking her home, but it feels different in some inexplicable way. More final. He won’t be back here until tomorrow. He’ll be with her. 

Electricity buzzes through her skin. 

\---

They don’t say much, when they get to her apartment. The silence isn’t awkward, but it does feel delicate. Even with the sounds of the city, muted and familiar in the background, it feels like they’re the only two people on the planet.

He hangs his coat next to hers in the closet, changes into gym shorts and a t-shirt in her bathroom while she pulls on her pajamas in her bedroom. They brush their teeth together, looking away every time they meet each other’s eyes in the mirror. 

“Do you, uh, want to watch a movie or something?” She asks when they’re done, and god, why does it feel like butterflies are swooping around in her stomach? They’ve watched plenty of movies before.

 _Well_ , she amends as he follows her into her bedroom, stretching out on her bed and opening her laptop, _not like this._

And even though they had sex the night they met, this feels more intimate, somehow. His toothbrush next to hers above the sink, his coat hanging next to hers in the closet, his feet bumping into hers under the covers. 

He balances the laptop on his lap and she curls up next to him - not quite touching, but it’s a close thing - and lets the gentle sound of Percy’s breathing mixed with a movie she’s already seen lull her to sleep.

\---

The credits are rolling when she wakes up, and Percy reaches out to close her laptop, quietly laughing at her when he sees her blinking blearily up at him.

“Hmm? What happened?”

“You fell asleep. Again.” He answers, setting her laptop on her bedside table. “You know this is the third time I thought we were watching a movie together and then I look over and you’re passed out.”

She stretches, and then burrows further under the blankets. “Stop bullying me.”

“I’m just saying, we have to stop trying to do anything past 8 p.m. since apparently that’s your bedtime.” 

“I’m creating human life, okay? Fuck off.”

Percy just chuckles, rolling off the bed and standing, cold air shocking Annabeth where the warmth of his body had been. “Goodnight, Annabeth.”

“Wait - where are you going?”

He pauses, halfway to the door. “The couch?”

She rolls her eyes at him and pulls back the top of her comforter. “Come on, Seaweed Brain.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

“I didn’t invite you to stay because I wanted you to sleep on my couch. Get in here before I murder you.”

He hesitates, but slides back into her bed after a moment, saying, “You’re mean when you’re tired.”

“Only when I’m tired?”

“Especially when you’re tired.”

“That’s better.”

Percy laughs as he settles on the bed, turning on his side to face her with about a foot of space between them. “Why do I like you so much?”

She closes her eyes contentedly. “I don’t know. You’re a masochist?”

“Must be.”

It’s quiet for a moment, just the occasional car passing by on the street below, the hum of the radiator, their breathing filling up the room.

“Hey Percy,” she whispers, peeking at him with one eye open.

“Yeah?”

“I like you, too.”

He breathes out a quiet laugh. “Yes.” he whispers triumphantly. “I knew it.”

She laughs, rolling her face into her pillow so he can’t see her stupid grin. “Shut up.”

“I don’t think I can,” He whispers, teasing. “I’m gonna have to add it to the billboard.”

She turns back to glare at him, but when his eyes meet hers a wide smile splits across his face. “Goodnight, Annabeth,” he whispers.

She cracks, giving him the slightest smile before she closes her eyes. “Goodnight, Percy.”

\---

  
  


It’s still early when she wakes up the next morning to the room bathed in an icy grey light. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes, and realizes the comfortable weight on her side is Percy’s arm. They’re still facing each other, but at some point in her sleep she’d crossed the distance between them, and he’d slung his arm around her, his hand lightly touching the small of her back, caging the swell of her stomach, the baby, between them.

He’s still asleep, his breathing deep and even. They’re close enough that she could press her nose into his chest, but if she tilts her head back she can see his face, half obscured by the pillow.

She studies him for a moment, safe in the knowledge that he won’t catch her staring, for once. She traces the shape of his jaw, the slope of his nose, his eyelashes, the scar on his cheekbone. The arc of his thick eyebrows, the wild mess of dark curls on her pillow, the way his hair tapers off, shorter on the sides. The curve of his ear, slightly pink because of the chill that’s found its way into her bedroom. And lastly, his lips, slightly parted, soft, perfect. She wonders if they’d be cold, if she kissed him.

The realization from yesterday, as they huddled together in the stairwell of his apartment building, rises up from where she’d buried it. And she doesn’t know how to love anyone, she never really has.

But she thinks she could love him anyway.

Maybe. 

(Fuck.)

As if he can read her thoughts, Percy starts to stir. 

“Hey.” He says softly, when their eyes meet.

“Hey.”

She expects him to be worried about how close they are, to apologize for his arm around her, but she’s surprised when he doesn’t. He lifts his hand to his face to rub at his eyes for a moment, but when he’s done, he drops his arm right back over her hips where it belongs, and it’s nice, being tucked together like this. She doesn’t want it to end.

“So…” he says when he’s fully awake, meeting her eyes again. “I’m assuming you don’t have any food in your kitchen.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “I have cereal.”

“Good cereal or old people cereal?”

“Self respecting adult cereal.”

Percy grimaces. “Is that what you call Raisin Bran?”

“Mhm.”

“Gross.”

Annabeth rolls her face into her pillow to hide her smile. “It’s too early to argue with you about this.”

“Alright. Since I’ll starve to death if we stay here...do you maybe want to go get some bagels with me?”

She squints at him with one eye. “What kind of bagels are we talking?”

“The delicious kind. Worth getting out of bed for.”

“Fine,” she relents, snuggling back under the blankets, “in a little bit.”

His smile is small, something she might not have noticed if they weren’t so close together, but it’s dazzling. His arm tightens just slightly around her as he settles back into his pillow, closing his eyes. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you guys like this chapter, as always thanks for leaving comments and talking to me on tumblr (at perca-beths) you guys are the best!! <3


	9. Chapter 9

**(nine)**

“Okay, so then what happened?”

“He followed me out to the stairs. I forgot my coat, so I guess he was going to try and chase me down with it.” 

Piper’s hands still from where they’ve been sorting through a store rack of maternity clothing, listening to Annabeth recount her argument with Percy from a few days ago to look up at her in disbelief. “Oh my god. Annabeth, this guy.”

“I  _ know, _ ” she replies, shaking her head. She had yelled at him, had told him she didn’t want to be with him and stormed out of his apartment, but ten minutes later he was ready to run down the street to return her coat - it’s still hard to wrap her head around. “But we talked a little more, I told him I was sorry for being an asshole. And then he said if I just wanted to be friends he would be okay with that…” She pauses to take a deep breath, “and I told him that isn’t what I want.”

Annabeth drops the grey sweater she’d been considering as Piper’s hand reaches over the rack to shove at her shoulder. “Babe!” Piper shouts, not caring about the looks they’re getting from the other shoppers.

“I know, I know. I told him to be patient with me but...yeah.” Annabeth bites her bottom lip, but it isn’t enough to stop a smile from taking over her face as she remembers that night, everything that came after that moment in the stairwell of Percy’s building. ”So, things are different now, I guess.”

“Good different?”

“Yeah,” she answers.

There’s really no way to explain it without sounding like an idiot. Because on the surface, nothing has changed - Percy is still Percy. He hasn’t made any big moves or sweeping romantic declarations or anything, and neither has she. Technically, they’re still just friends. But somehow everything is different. 

Maybe it’s just because the unspoken thing between them has finally been acknowledged, but it feels calmer, when she’s around him. The tension is still palpable, but it feels more like the anticipation of opening a present and not knowing what’s inside, and less like she’s standing with her toes on the edge of a cliff, about to jump.

That morning when she woke up with his arm curled around her, as they walked to the bakery to get bagels that Percy kept swearing would be worth the effort, Annabeth had reached out and threaded her fingers through his. And the warmth of his hand still made her skin tingle, but when she looked over at him he had the softest smile on his face, like he’d never been more at peace.

He’ll wait patiently, just like she asked him to. 

(Though if she’s honest with herself, she’s not sure he’ll have much longer to wait.)

“He uh...he spent the night at our place Saturday night actually.” 

Piper drops the hanger she’d been holding, and looks at Annabeth with wide eyes. “What?!”

“He walked me home,” Annabeth explains, pretending to nonchalantly be focused on the clothes in front of her, “and I just...told him he could stay.”

“Oh my god!” Piper shouts, and then lowers her voice after looking around to see how many people heard her. “Did he sleep in your bed?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that?!”

“We just slept, okay?” Annabeth answers, grinning despite her attempt at a serious tone. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Piper grins. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of you. Not even that time you verbally abused Matt Sloan so much you got kicked out of that Jamba Juice.”

“He was talking shit about you right in front of me, what was I supposed to do?”

Piper laughs, throwing a piece of her choppy dark brown hair over one shoulder. “What about this?” She asks, holding up a green floral maternity top. 

Annabeth wrinkles her nose. “Too bright.”

Piper returns it to the rack unceremoniously. “Seriously though, Annabeth. This is great. I really think he could be good for you.”

“Don’t get too excited about it, okay?” Annabeth looks up from the shirts she’s been sorting through to give Piper a hard look. “I told him I don’t want to just be friends, we’re not like...getting married tomorrow or anything.”

“Okay, okay, I hear you. No pressure,” Piper starts, and Annabeth holds her breath for the inevitable  _ but _ . “But I just think that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you gave it a chance.”

There it is. Annabeth sighs. “Piper -”

_ “I know, _ you could break up and things would be messy. Blah blah blah.” Piper says sarcastically. To be fair, she’s heard Annabeth’s reservations about dating Percy more than a few times. Her voice lowers into something much softer when she speaks again, meeting Annabeth’s eyes and saying, “Things could also be amazing, have you ever considered that?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Piper’s face becomes sympathetic, but hard. The look she makes when she has something blunt to say that she knows Annabeth doesn’t want to hear.

“I know it’s scary,” Piper says firmly, “but you’re also the bravest person I know. And at some point you’re gonna have to face that fear.”

Annabeth swallows, focusing on the shirts in front of her while her brain tries to make sense of those words. Her brain catches on the way Piper had called her brave with such conviction. She used to be brave, didn’t she? But then after Luke, and Thalia...she stopped taking chances. She started keeping everyone at arm's length, stopped jumping into things without knowing exactly where she’d land. 

She doesn’t feel very brave, most days.

But she wants to be.

“This selection kind of sucks,” Piper announces, apparently recognizing that Annabeth will need some time to think over her advice. “What do you think, should we try Macy’s?”

“You hate Macy’s.”

“I know, but these are desperate times.” Piper replies, circling around the clothes rack to walk with Annabeth out of the store. “I just know in my heart of hearts that you’re the prettiest pregnant woman of all time and I’m desperate to see your lil’ baby bump in something other than an ugly oversized sweatshirt.”

Annabeth shoves her best friend’s shoulder with her own. “I’m still wearing most of my regular clothes!”

Piper wraps her hands around Annabeth’s elbow, hugging her arm as they step out onto the street. “I just want you to look cute for Friendsgiving.”

“Why do you care what I wear to Friendsgiving?” Annabeth asks, her eyes narrowed at her best friend suspiciously. 

“No reason, really…” Piper starts, with an innocent tone that Annabeth doesn’t buy for a second. “Although I do think you should invite Percy.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “He probably has plans for Thanksgiving with his family, Pipes.”

“He doesn’t.”

“What?”

“He told Jason last weekend when they watched that Knicks game together.”

“Oh,” Annabeth says, stunned. Percy had mentioned that Jason had invited him to a sports bar to watch the game a few weeks ago, but then he’d started an argument with her about which Star Wars trilogy was the best and she got so worked up she forgot all about it. “Really?”

“Yeah, his family’s going out of town or something. So?”

“So, what?”

“Are you going to invite him or do I need to? I’m not above doing it myself, I have his number.”

“Oh my god. No, I will invite him.” Annabeth says, shaking her head. “Stop meddling.”

Piper puts a hand to her chest in fake offense. “Who, me?”

Annabeth scoffs as Piper laughs, throwing her head back. They walk in silence for half a block before Piper starts talking again, smoothly changing the subject. “So, if it’s a girl I think you should seriously consider Margot.”

Since Piper found out about the baby, names have been her favorite topic of conversation. She sends Annabeth several name suggestions every day, in texts while she’s at work, written on the little whiteboard on their fridge, popping into the bathroom to shout them at Annabeth while she’s in the shower. Most of them aren’t bad, and a few have made Annabeth’s list of possibilities, but Piper also has a pretty wide definition of acceptable names for a baby.

Annabeth turns the name over in her mind. “It’s not the worst name you’ve suggested.”

“Come on! Margot Chase-Jackson. That’s fucking adorable and you know it.” Piper says, pouting at Annabeth. “And I still stand by Ambrosia.”

“I could not in good conscience name a child Ambrosia.”

“Why not? It’s kind of mystical, very unique.”

Annabeth shakes her head, laughing at her best friend. “You’re fucking insane.”

“And you love me for it.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “You know I do.”

  
  


\---

Figuring it’s not a great idea to give Piper any more time to get ideas about inviting Percy to their Thanksgiving plans herself, Annabeth calls him that night.

“Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving?” She asks the second he answers.

_ “Hello to you too,”  _ Percy replies with thick sarcasm.  _ “I’m doing good, thanks for asking.” _

She drops onto the edge of her bed, rolling her eyes even though he can’t see. “Answer the question.”

He laughs.  _ “No, I do not have any solid plans for Thanksgiving. I was thinking I’d see what Nico’s up to, Hazel’s going with Frank to visit his grandmother so I think he’s alone too.” _

“What about your family?”

_ “They’re going to see Paul’s parents in Montana, and normally I’d go with them but I’m trying to save up some time off at the moment.” _

That’s news to Annabeth. She tries to remember him making any mention of saving up his vacation time for something, but comes up empty. “You are?”

_ “Yeah,”  _ he says quietly, and she can hear the smile in his voice. _ “I have a feeling I might want it in April.” _

Of course. He’s saving up his leave for the baby.

“Oh,” she breathes out, trying to suppress the feeling that her heart is suddenly too big for her ribcage. She really shouldn’t be so surprised, at this point, she thinks. Wherever the baby is involved, Percy’s always exceeding her expectations. “Well, uh, since you don’t have plans, would you maybe want to come to my friend’s weird Thanksgiving dinner thing? Nico’s welcome to come too.”

_ “Weird dinner thing?” _ He asks, voice full of amusement. _ “I’d love to. What makes it weird?”  _

“Well, we call it Friendsgiving, it’s for everyone who doesn’t have family, or can’t spend the holiday with their family, or whatever. We’ve been doing it since college.”

_ “Okay, what makes it weird?” _

“Well, Piper is very morally and culturally opposed to the whole bullshit pilgrim story, so it’s kind of an anti-Thanksgiving.”

_ “So far, I love it.” _

“So you have to bring a dish, but it can’t be anything from the ‘traditional’ Thanksgiving meal.” She explains. “No turkey, no cranberry sauce, nothing like that. Last year we had sushi and tofu burgers. And instead of being thankful we all go around in a circle and complain about something.”

Percy laughs.  _ “Okay, that sounds awesome.” _

“It’s usually a pretty good time.”

_ “I can make tamales? Does that work?” _

“That’s perfect. I think everyone’s coming over at like noon.”

_ “I’ll be there,” _ he says,  _ “and I’ll ask Nico, I’m sure he’ll love the complaining part.” _

Annabeth laughs. She hasn’t met Nico yet, but she’s heard plenty of stories about him. “Well then I bet Nico and I get along great. It’s one of my favorite traditions.”

_ “Oh yeah? You gonna complain about me?” _

“Absolutely.” She drops her head down onto the pillow, a wide grin that she can’t seem to contain taking over her face. “The way you drink orange juice out of the carton? I could go on for hours.”

_ “So what I’m hearing is now would be a great time to restart the eggshell argument.” _

“Oh my god, I can’t get into this with you again.”

_ “Why would I waste the valuable space in my trash can when I can just put the broken eggs back in their little container?” _

“I’m hanging up.”

_ “Okay, okay!”  _ Percy relents, laughing. _ “Hey, the appointment is at ten on Monday, right?” _

“Yes.” She answers. In just a few days she has the anatomy scan ultrasound - where they’ll check for any birth defects, and tell Percy and Annabeth if the baby is a boy or a girl. Piper is practically counting down the days, making bets with anyone who will go for it, and last Annabeth heard, if the baby is a girl Leo will be paying her fifty dollars, and the number keeps climbing. But for the most part, no one seems to mind that they won’t be making a big deal out of it, which is nice.

_ “You excited?” _

“I am, yeah. You?”

_ “Definitely. Mostly so we can stop referring to the baby as an ‘it’ when we talk about it.” _

“That’s a plus.” She says, chuckling.

Percy hums.  _ “And I’m looking forward to arguing with you about names.” _

“What makes you think we’ll argue?”

_ “Because we like to argue.”  _ He answers, chuckling.  _ “It’s okay, it’s just who we are, I’ve accepted it.” _

Annabeth sighs heavily. “You’re gonna suggest some really crazy names, aren’t you.”

_ “I don’t know…”  _ Percy says mischievously,  _ “do you consider Poseidon a crazy name?” _

“Oh my god.”

_ “What about Riptide?” _

“Please tell me you’re messing with me.”

His laugh is infectious, even though she can’t see his face.  _ “Yes, I am.” _

“You’re the worst.”

_ “I know. You like me anyway.” _

“Whatever,” she says. It’s too late to deny it.

_ “I’ll see you Monday,”  _ he says, still laughing.

“See you Monday,” she responds, and hopes he can’t tell through her voice that she can’t stop the stupid grin spreading across her face.

\---

The day of her appointment, he’s waiting for her outside the clinic with a warm smile, and she’s surprised when he pulls her in for a quick hug before they go inside, but she leans into it just the same. It’s only been a little over a week since she saw him last, that night he spent at her apartment, but she actually  _ missed _ him. 

_ Ridiculous. _

“So, are you hoping for anything?” She asks once they’ve checked in and have taken their seats in the waiting room.

“Hmmm,” Percy turns to look at her. “Not really. Not to sound like, the most cliche person or whatever but I’ll just be happy with a healthy baby either way.”

Her lips tilt up into a soft smile. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” He says, smiling back at her for a moment. “What about you, you got a preference?”

“No, I mean I’ll be happy either way.” She tells him honestly. “Although I do think it’s a girl.”

“You do?”

“Just a gut feeling, I guess. And a few very vivid dreams.” 

Percy nods, looking around the room. “Well, I think you’re probably right, then.”

“Oh you do, do you?” She asks, an amused smile playing at her lips.

“Okay don’t let your head get too big, but...yeah you are right about a lot of things.” He tells her, grinning at the smug expression on her face. “I’d have to be pretty dumb to bet against you.”

Thankfully, that’s the moment they get called back for the appointment, before she has the chance to do something stupid, like kiss him.

  
  


\---

The baby looks great, according to the doctor, and Annabeth can see her relief reflected on Percy’s face when they hear that everything is normal. 

The craziest part is that the baby looks like an actual baby, this time. At the first ultrasound they had only seen a tiny white squiggle, but now there’s an actual  _ baby,  _ kicking and moving around and sucking their thumb. They’re able to make out a face, a distinct profile with a cute little button nose. 

Annabeth can’t help but think back to the last ultrasound she had as she watches the baby’s little lips move, their little feet kick out. The fear that had almost completely overwhelmed her then isn’t hitting her, today. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s had more time to get used to it, or that she feels so much more prepared now than she did then. Or maybe it’s Percy’s fingers tucked into hers, so much more familiar now and squeezing tight, the huge smile spreading on his face as he watches the screen with watery eyes - but Annabeth just feels a calm happiness wash over her. An indescribable certainty that everything will be fine.

That little face on the screen makes her feel like things will work out, somehow.

\---

“Okay, you ready?” Annabeth asks as they step out onto the street after the appointment, brandishing the envelope the ultrasound tech had given them.

“Yes, open it!” Percy exclaims, reaching for the envelope.

Annabeth pulls her hand out of his reach, taking a step back and tucking the envelope behind her back. “Are you sure?” She asks, “Maybe we should go somewhere for lunch or something, or we can open it on Thanksgiving…”

Percy shakes his head at her. “You’re killing me.”

“We could have Piper bake it into a cake...buy some fireworks and set my whole apartment building on fire or something?”

“ _ Annabeth _ ,” he whines through his laughter, “come on.”

Annabeth laughs. “Okay okay, I can’t wait either. Ready?”

Percy nods, and moves closer to watch over her shoulder as Annabeth slips one finger under the flap on the envelope, tearing it open swiftly. Inside is a little pink card which has “It’s a girl!” typed on it in a loopy cursive font.

She feels Percy let out a long breath behind her. “A girl?”

“Yep,” she answers, tilting her head back to look at him with a huge grin splitting across her face. “A girl.”

His face lights up until it’s matching hers, and then he’s spinning her around and pulling her into his arms. She can feel his chest shaking as he laughs. “You were right.”

Annabeth laughs along with him, her cheeks hurt from smiling. “I’m always right. Are you surprised?”

He tightens his arms around her, just slightly. “Not really.”

_ It’s a girl. _

Annabeth has spent so much time over the last few months wondering what kind of person this baby will end up becoming. If she’ll be anything like Annabeth was as a child, if she’ll be more like Percy. What she’ll be interested in, what her personality will be like. But, it doesn’t really matter, she realizes now. Above everything, her daughter will have what Annabeth never did, growing up. She’ll always be wanted. Loved.

She presses her forehead into the hard plane of his chest. “We’re gonna have a daughter.” She says, hardly believing it.

“Our daughter.” Percy replies, his voice dreamy as his hands drift up and down her spine. “I like the sound of that.”

The way his voice wraps around the word  _ our _ makes her heart do a few flips in her ribcage. She grins up at him. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I just realized that at some point I'll have to pick a name for this kid, so....if y'all have any suggestions leave them in the comments or send them to me over at perca-beths!
> 
> As always thanks so much for letting me know what you think of this fic, you guys are the best!


	10. Chapter 10

**(ten)**

  
  
  


[4:29 PM]  **Percy:** what about Lily?

[4:30 PM]  **Annabeth:** hmmm...I don’t love the flower names, ngl

[4:30 PM]  **Percy:** well my next five suggestions were flower names, so that saves us some time

[4:30 PM]  **Percy:** although 

[4:30 PM]  **Percy:** does Aspen count as a flower name? 

[4:30 PM]  **Percy:** bc it’s a tree but it’s still like...nature themed

[4:31 PM]  **Annabeth:** lol are you really suggesting Aspen as a name for a child?

[4:32 PM]  **Percy:** …

[4:32 PM]  **Percy:** no

Annabeth laughs into her palm in case any of her coworkers pass by the windows of her office. She’s got another half an hour of her work day left, but she hasn’t been able to truly focus since Percy started texting her name ideas over an hour ago. 

Really, she thinks as she types out her reply, she should put an end to their conversation and get some work done. She’ll be spending most of the day with him tomorrow at Friendsgiving, and Piper is sure to make names a prominent topic of conversation - once Annabeth finally tells her that the baby is a girl, anyway.

Despite Piper’s complaints the last two days, Annabeth’s had more fun than she should admit holding the information over her best friend’s head. Although, in the end she’s just making things more convenient - she’ll tell Piper tomorrow, and everyone who owes her money will be right there.

Excitement jolts through her at that thought. Percy will get to meet most of her friends tomorrow, and she’ll finally get to meet his friend Nico. And on top of all that, Friendsgiving is one of her favorite holidays. 

Christmas has always been a mixed bag, depending on whether she attempts a trip home, stays alone at her apartment, or gives into Piper’s wheedling and spends the holiday as an extra piece at the McLean house - but since college, when Piper found out Annabeth wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving and decided to stay in their dorm with her, this is what they’ve done. And it’s better than any of the family holidays Annabeth has ever been a part of.

Annabeth hits send and sets her phone down, attempting to focus on her email for a moment, when her coworker Malcolm knocks on her open door.

“Hey, Annabeth?” He asks, a grimace on his face. Whatever news he has, it isn’t good. “Mr. Cooper called. We have a problem.”

Annabeth groans internally, already preparing to kiss her plans for the evening goodbye. “How big of a problem?”

“He wants us to start over on his design,” Malcolm says, “from scratch.”

“Okay,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can this be a problem for Monday?” 

Malcolm shakes his head. “Mr. D told him he’d have it by Friday.”

“Friday?” Annabeth’s eyebrows shoot up. Clients giving unreasonably short deadlines for changes to their floor plans isn’t new, and their boss, Mr. D, typically lets them get away with it - but 4:30 on the last day of the week before they’re supposed to be off for a holiday is a new low. “You’re kidding,” she says flatly.

Malcolm shakes his head wearily. “Reyna and I will both stay tonight, and come in tomorrow if we have to.”

She lets out a deep sigh, resigning herself to a long night at her drafting table. “Happy Thanksgiving to us, I guess.”

\---

The next day is blustery and cold, with flurries of snow flying aimlessly, spending too long caught in the wind before they finally make it to the ground. It’s perfect weather for staying tucked inside with everyone you love, so the fact that Annabeth is seeing it from the windows of her office as the minutes tick down to twelve is particularly grating. 

She hadn’t made it home until almost midnight last night, only to come back before eight this morning with a few of her coworkers, hoping to finish the design for their nightmare of a client before everyone’s Thanksgiving plans were ruined.

And really, they were getting close. Luckily, Reyna had dug up a draft of a design that they’d decided not to show Mr. Cooper back in the first round of planning, so they didn’t have to start completely from scratch, and with a few more updates Annabeth thought they’d have something presentable.

At a quarter to noon she realizes she can’t put off calling Percy any longer, because she really does need to let him know just how late she’s going to be, but for some reason that she can’t quite pinpoint, she’s dreading it.

Luke always used to take it so personally, when her work affected their plans. She’d get in late; starving, tired, and irritated from her job, and instead of the comfort of finally being home she would only get Luke’s cold anger and disappointment. There were times that she’d stay hours after her work was finished so that he’d be asleep well before she got home, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the quiet, unbearable tension when he was awake, upset with her, but punishing her with silence instead of telling her what bothered him.

_ Percy’s not Luke, _ she tells herself as the phone starts ringing, but she feels steeled up for a fight regardless.

_ “Hey,”  _ Percy greets on the second ring.

“Hey...” Annabeth starts, uneasy. “Have you left yet?”

“ _ No, I’m still at my apartment. Nico just got here and decided I have to change because he’s dressed a little too nicely and he doesn’t want to look weird _ .”

Annabeth hears what she assumes is Nico shout  _ “Shut up!” _ in the background.

_ “Why,” _ Percy continues, ignoring Nico,  _ “are you still at your office?” _

“Unfortunately, yes. I’ll probably be stuck here another hour or two. I’m sorry.”

_ “Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault,” _ Percy says easily, and the tightness in Annabeth’s chest eases. She’s not sure what she’d been expecting, really, but it hadn’t been this. “ _ We’ll just head over and hang out with Jason and Piper, it’s all good.” _

“Are you sure?”

_ “Annabeth, yes, I’m sure,” _ he replies, laughing at her. _ “I like your friends. Get back to your architecting so you don’t miss everything.” _

“Okay,” she says, chuckling. “I’ll see you soon.”

_ “See you soon.” _

Dazed, Annabeth clicks off her phone and sets it back in the top drawer of her desk.  _ What were you expecting?  _ A stern voice in the back of her head that sounds a lot like Piper asks.  _ He’s not Luke. _

And it’s not a new thought, obviously, but it’s never been more clear than in this moment. Luke, in this situation, would have been a pain. He never would have volunteered to hang out with her friends any more than absolutely necessary, and she would have spent the rest of the day anxious, apologizing to him over and over for something that, Percy was right, isn’t even her fault.

It’s not lost on her that Percy just resolved in seconds something that would have ruined Annabeth’s entire weekend a few years ago.

Annabeth shakes herself and starts making her way back to the conference room where Reyna and Malcolm are working with renewed motivation, ready to tackle the final details of this project as quickly as possible and get out of there. She wants to go home, see her apartment full of friends, eat good food, laugh at the look on Leo’s face when he realizes how much money he now owes Piper.

But, more than anything, she wants to see Percy.

\---

An hour and a half later, Annabeth opens the door and is greeted by the warmth and noise of ten extra people crammed into her apartment, several of them calling out, happy that she could finally join them.

While she toes out of her boots by the door she catches Percy’s eye for just a moment, where he’s standing in her living room talking to her friend Clarisse. He looks...really good, with a nice dark grey sweater and dark jeans, his hair a little more controlled than usual as he nods at Clarisse even as his eyes keep flicking back to Annabeth by the front door, smiling just slightly at her as she hangs up her coat.

She’s just about to make her way over to him when Piper all but descends on her, a blazing look in her eyes.

“Okay. It’s been days.” Piper starts, “you have to tell me.”

Annabeth laughs. “I’m surprised you didn’t get Percy to tell you while I was gone.”

“Oh, I tried. He doesn’t know what’s good for him either.” Piper says, throwing a quick glare at Percy. “Babe, please. Leo owes me two hundred dollars if he’s wrong. Tell me.”

“Two  _ hundred _ ? Pipes -”

“He’s the one who keeps raising it! He needs to learn self control.”

“You two are insane.”

“It’s why we’re good friends,” Piper says impatiently. She reaches for Annabeth’s arms and starts dragging her into the center of their living room. “Everyone!” she announces, “Annabeth and Percy have something to tell us!” Piper drags Percy away from where he’s been standing with Clarisse and deposits him directly next to Annabeth. 

Annabeth glares at her best friend, but Percy seems pretty amused by the whole thing. “Hey,” he says, smiling down at Annabeth. 

“Hey,” she responds, a grin spreading across her face despite herself. She takes a deep breath as she looks out at her group of friends, everyone watching them, the intense expressions on Leo and Piper’s faces. 

“It’s a girl!” Annabeth announces, and all hell breaks loose. 

  
  


\---

When everyone’s stopped shouting, and several people have congratulated them, and almost half of the crowd have given Piper cash (except Leo, who’s tactic seems to be hiding from her on the opposite side of the apartment) Annabeth finally gets to meet Nico.

He stands out against the bright decor Piper had supplied for their living room, wearing mostly black, with his dark hair hanging in his face. But he smiles at Annabeth warmly, and rolls his eyes at Percy when he tries to introduce him as “Neeks”, and Annabeth can see the ease between them that she guesses you only get when you’ve been friends with someone since you were children. 

Annabeth watches them tease each other for a few minutes and thinks that it’s funny how opposite she and Percy are when it comes to friends. Outside of Piper, she’s always let people drift in and out of her life - safer that way, better than getting too attached and getting left behind - but here was Percy, telling Annabeth a story about Nico from when they were children, because Nico and his mother had moved into the apartment next door when Percy was ten and he had just held onto their friendship since then. 

She knows Percy is also good friends with Nico’s sister, Hazel, that he’d met his best friend Grover in seventh grade, that his friend Rachel was someone he’d gone to high school with. Annabeth doesn’t think she has a way to contact anyone from any of the high schools she’d attended. Percy just has this way of opening up his life, pulling people into it, and holding onto them.

(Annabeth just hopes she’s one of the people he won’t let go of, as improbable as it feels.)

“Percy!” Piper hisses from across the room, interrupting his story and gesturing for him to join her in the hallway in the most suspicious way Annabeth can imagine.

Percy’s eyebrows jump up knowingly, and he nods at her before turning back to Annabeth and Nico, attempting (poorly) to look casual. It was a mistake to let the two of them spend time together without her, Annabeth realizes, since they’re so obviously up to something. 

“Be right back,” he says to both of them, “Piper just needs me for help with uh...something.”

Annabeth laughs. “You really are bad at lying. What are you guys up to?”

Percy reaches up one hand to rub at the back of his neck, glancing at Nico wearily for just a second before he starts stepping away from them, toward Piper. “What? Us? No, we’re not up to anything. I’ll be back.” 

Nico and Annabeth exchange a look as Percy turns and walks away quickly. 

“Whatever this is, it can’t be good,” Nico says, chuckling.

“Oh definitely,” Annabeth replies, rolling her eyes, “I’m too hungry to care though, did you guys eat already?”

“No, not yet.”

“Ugh,” Annabeth groans. She’d been hoping all the way home that her friends would have already eaten, so she could have started stuffing her face right when she got here. “Please tell me it’s soon.”

Nico smiles at her. “Yes. Last I heard it was any minute now.”

Annabeth drops down onto her couch, sighing. “Alright, I guess that’s not terrible.”

“You know,” Nico says, sitting down beside her. “It’s really nice to meet you, finally. I’m really happy for you guys.”

Annabeth blinks at him for a second, her heart squeezing at how easily all of her friends (and Percy’s, apparently) have accepted this. She’d been worried Percy’s friends and family wouldn’t approve, or that they would resent her for what she’s doing to his life, or something, but Nico’s response is what she would have expected to hear if she and Percy were married, if this was something they had planned. 

“Thank you,” she says.

“Percy...he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah,” Annabeth replies, biting down on her bottom lip. “He is.” 

Nico nods, glancing off in the direction Percy had disappeared, and they sit in silence for a few seconds while Annabeth looks around the room, Will and Clarisse by the stereo arguing over who’s playlist is better, and Leo talking to Travis and Katie in the corner, hiding from Piper, conveniently next to the window so he can jump out onto the fire escape if she should come back. Annabeth turns back to Nico.“Is this the part where you tell me not to hurt him or you’ll have me murdered?”

“Nah,” Nico replies, laughing softly. “That's Grover's jurisdiction. Not that I’m above murder, or anything.” He shoots her a sly smile that makes her question how much of what he’s saying is a joke. “Although I will tell you that he literally will not shut up about you.”

“Really?”

“Really. It’s actually very fucking annoying.” Nico says, kicking his feet up onto their coffee table. “It’s all ‘Annabeth showed me this song the other day’ and ‘the clouds right now are the same shade as Annabeth’s eyes,’” Annabeth stifles her laughter with her fist as Nico continues, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Seriously if you could stop being so pretty and interesting or whatever that would help me a lot.”

“I’ll try,” she promises, chuckling, trying to control the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of Percy telling another person about the color of her eyes.

Nico breathes out a sigh of relief, looking at her gratefully. “Thank you.”

\---

By the time Jason announces that food is ready and everyone can head to the table, Annabeth has decided she really likes Nico. He’s snarky and sarcastic in a way Annabeth clicks with immediately, and he has a quiet, deadpan humor that’s pretty hilarious.

They walk together into the kitchen, and where Piper and Annabeth’s small Ikea table normally sits, Piper has two folding tables that belong to Jason set up so that all of them can eat together. And Annabeth is also surprised to see that Piper actually set the table, and put fancy little place cards at each seat. The whole thing looks hilarious on top of the kid’s superhero birthday party table cloth Piper had chosen for that extra Anti-Thanksgiving touch last week.

“You felt the need to do a seating chart this year?” Annabeth asks her best friend as she takes her pre-ordained seat.

“Don’t worry about it,” Piper says briskly, taking the chair across from her. She winks at Percy, who has just walked in and started pulling out the chair next to Annabeth. 

“Okay,” Annabeth says, turning on Percy. “What are you guys up to?”

Percy acts casual, although Annabeth notices his eyes flick to Nico at the other end of the table, taking the seat next to Annabeth’s friend Will. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice to a whisper. “You’ll see.”

Annabeth stares down at Nico and Will as everyone else files in, and watches Nico’s eyes light up, a blush forming on his cheeks, when Will laughs loudly at something he’s said.

“You didn’t.” Annabeth says, turning on Piper. She drops her voice to a whisper. “Will  _ specifically _ asked you to stop setting him up.”

“What happened last summer was not my fault,” Piper hisses back. “And I would hardly call this a setup. I’m just...creating an opportunity.”

“Yes, I’m sure having them sit next to each other for dinner is the only thing you have planned.” Annabeth replies with heavy sarcasm.

“Whatever! Will is gonna be thanking me, okay? Percy and I have been discussing this at length and they are  _ perfect _ for each other! Look at them!”

Annabeth looks again, and can’t help but think that on the outside they look like complete opposites. Nico with his dark, goth look, all sly and sarcastic next to Will with his goofy smiles and his mop of golden blonde curls. But she can’t deny that they’re incredibly cute together.

She turns her glare to Percy. “And you agreed to this?”

“What can I say?” Percy answers, shrugging. “I’m a romantic.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes at him, and he laughs.

\---

Nico and Will spend the rest of the afternoon practically attached at the hip, which only makes Percy and Piper more unbearable as the night goes on. And later, after dinner, and complaints, and drinks, and a few rounds of board games, when Nico goes to leave, Will jumps up to walk with him. 

The second the door shuts behind them, Percy and Piper jump up and run to high five each other, screaming, while Annabeth and Jason shake their heads disapprovingly from the table.

\---

  
  


After the meal the day had turned into more of a party, with drinks being poured (for everyone except Annabeth, obviously) and the table getting set up for beer pong. So, at the end of the night, when Nico and Will are gone, and Katie has dragged a very drunk Connor, Travis, and Clarisse to their Uber, it really isn’t a surprise to Annabeth when Piper says, “Hey, so, small problem - Leo is passed out on your bed.” He’d seemed pretty drunk. It’s certainly happened before.

But Annabeth doesn’t buy it for a second.

“I talked to Percy and he said you could spend the night at his place, if you want.” Piper continues, and  _ there it is. _ Annabeth had hoped meddling in Will’s love life would be enough for one evening, but she’s clearly underestimated Piper.

“Really?” She says, glaring.

“Mhm,” Piper says innocently, entirely focused on picking up all of the pieces of a board game they’d left out on the coffee table in their living room. “I tried to wake him up and everything, he’s really gone. It’ll probably be way easier to just go with Percy.”

Annabeth raises an eyebrow at Piper, crossing her arms across her chest. “I thought you agreed not to meddle.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Piper says, turning toward Annabeth with one hand on her hip, smiling brightly. “I just saw a problem and I came up with a solution for you. You’re welcome.”

“Don’t think I don’t see right through this,” Annabeth says flatly, pointing a finger at Piper, but her best friend just smiles at her anger. 

“Love you too!” She says, leaning in and smacking a loud kiss onto Annabeth’s cheek. “Have fun tonight!”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, but there’s no real heat behind it. While she doesn’t love being manipulated like this, she can’t complain too much with the end result.

\---

Percy is in the kitchen, putting away the last of the leftovers and talking animatedly to Jason. Annabeth stands in the doorway for a minute, watching them, when he sees her and grins. “Hey,” he says, leaning back against the counter.

Jason steps around Annabeth to start taking down the tables, and she crosses the kitchen to stand next to Percy, leaning her hip against the counter next to him. 

“So, tonight…” Annabeth starts, and Percy cuts her off with a soft smile on his face.

“I know Piper’s just messing with you, you don’t have to come over if you don’t want to.”

Annabeth takes him in, from the way his arms are crossed casually over his chest to his adorably soft expression. He won’t ask her to go with him, but she can tell it’s what he’s hoping for. She presses her lips together, trying to tamp down the grin threatening to take over her face. “What if I want to anyway?”

The corner of Percy’s mouth ticks up, just slightly. “That’d be okay, too.”

“Okay,” she says, casually, even as she can feel herself grinning, can see him fighting not to copy her. She pushes off the counter and takes a few steps toward the door, still facing him. “I’ll go pack a bag real quick.”

Percy finally breaks, smiling widely at her. “Okay.”

\---

Annabeth leaves him in the kitchen and heads down the hallway to her bedroom, where, sure enough, Leo is laying in her bed doing a horrible job of acting like he’s asleep. She peeks back out into the hallway to make sure Piper isn’t close enough to overhear before closing the door and flicking the lights on.

“I know you’re faking it,” she says as she crosses to her closet, opening the door loudly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leo says, peeking at her with one eye. “I’m asleep.”

“Uh huh,” Annabeth says flatly, pulling out her backpack and walking around the bed to her dresser. “Piper blackmail you?”

“Nah, she went with debt forgiveness this time.”

“Ohh,” she says as she starts pulling clothes out of her dresser and stuffing them into her bag. “So you do this and you don’t have to pay her the two hundred dollars?”

“Exactamente.” 

“So if I called Piper in right now, I’d get to sleep in my own bed _ and _ you would have to pay her?”

Leo bolts upright. “Please don’t.”

“I don’t really see a downside,” Annabeth says cheerfully. “She’ll probably buy something nice for the apartment with your money.”

He clasps his hands together in front of him. “Annabeth, I’m begging you. I swear I’ll never make bets with Piper again.”

Annabeth laughs quietly. “I highly doubt that. But fine - I won’t rat you out. You owe me one, though.”

“Fine,” Leo groans, dropping back onto the bed and scrubbing one hand down his face. “I regret the day I met you guys, sometimes.”

“You’re welcome.” Annabeth says as she zips the bag shut and starts toward the door. 

“Whatever,” Leo replies, settling into Annabeth’s pillow with his hands under his cheek, closing his eyes. “Like you don’t want to spend more time making goo goo eyes at Percy, anyway. Get out of my room.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, picks up another pillow off her bed, and tosses it onto Leo’s face on her way to the door, turning off the lights as she hears Leo mumble something that sounds like “rude” from underneath the pillow.

Whatever, she tells herself. She wasn’t making “goo goo eyes” at Percy.

(But if she does, in fact, not mind the excuse to spend more time with him tonight, that’s nobody’s business.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! This time is a little different, I'm gonna post chapters 10 and 11 at the same time because I wrote them together, it just felt like it needed a chapter break. But I also didn't get a lot done this week so I probably won't be posting anything next week ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Anyway thanks again, please let me know what you think in the comments or over on tumblr at perca-beths!


	11. Chapter 11

**(eleven)**

  
  


Later that night, when Annabeth has finished changing into a sweatshirt and shorts in Percy’s bathroom, she enters his room to find him sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at his phone and biting his lip.

“Hey,” she says, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible even as she realizes this is the first time she’s ever been in his bedroom, and she’s going to be sleeping here.

“Hey,” he replies, smiling lazily up at her. “Are you busy next Friday?”

She crosses over to the side of the bed he isn’t sitting on and pulls back the covers, which she isn’t surprised to see are blue. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Piper wants us to throw a big party, get both of our groups of friends together.”

“Wow, Piper was very busy tonight,” she says sarcastically as she settles into his bed. “I’m surprised she had time to bully you into throwing a party between all the meddling she was doing with me and Will.”

Percy laughs. “Is that okay with you, though?”

“What, the party? Or the meddling?”

“The party.”

“Sure, I mean, I want to meet your friends.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“Then yeah, we might as well. If we don’t I’m sure Piper will find some way to make it happen without us.”

“I believe it.”

“She likes to think she’s some kind of mastermind. But, even if her plans aren’t always super well thought out, she’ll never give up. It’s easier to just go along with it, most of the time.”

“Oh, is that the only reason you came home with me?”

“Maybe.”

He raises an eyebrow at her over his shoulder as he stands to flick off the lights. “Was Leo even drunk enough to have passed out?” 

She hums, remembering her conversation with Leo before they left her apartment, where he admitted that Piper had made a deal with him to pretend to be asleep in Annabeth’s bed so that she would have to stay over at Percy’s. “Not at all,” she says, chuckling. “But he’s the one who owed her the most money, so I guess Piper didn’t have many options.”

Percy lifts up his comforter and slides into the bed, settling on his side facing her with less than a foot of space between them. Warmth radiates from him, and she can feel it even though they aren’t technically touching. She pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her wrists and tucks her hands under the pillow. “Clarisse would have been much more believable, she was plastered.”

He laughs. “Clarisse was cool.”

“Alcohol makes her pretty lovey-dovey.” Annabeth replies. “She’s normally more aggressive.”

“Ah,” Percy nods at her, “I see why you’re friends with her, then.”

Annabeth narrows her eyes at him. “You calling me aggressive, Jackson?”

There’s just enough light from the city coming in through the window to illuminate the smirk on Percy’s face. “Absolutely.”

Annabeth sighs heavily and they fall into silence for a few moments, watching each other in the dark. She’d been yawning the entire walk to his apartment, but now, laying in his bed, his face just six inches away, those beautiful eyes of his leisurely looking over her face as she does the same thing to him - suddenly she’s wide awake.

“How do I get rid of you?” She asks jokingly.

Percy blows out a puff of air, like he’s really considering her dilemma. “Too late now,” he says, face screwed up sympathetically, “your friends all loved me, so it’s kind of a done deal.”

“Whatever. My friends were all drunk.”

Percy laughs softly. “Yeah, they were.”

“Not you, though.” She says, raising one eyebrow at him. It’s something she’d noticed, as the evening went on. He participated a little, and while his laughs got a little louder and he’d seemed more relaxed, he hadn’t seemed nearly as drunk as any of her friends - or really drunk at all, for that matter. 

“Hey, I’m a little buzzed.” Percy defends lightly. “Piper forced a few shots on me.”

“But you’re not actually drunk.”

“No,” he admits, scrunching his face up at her. “I don’t really drink, often. Or that much when I do.”

“Why is that?” Annabeth asks, genuinely curious. She doesn’t consider that it might be a pretty personal question until she hears Percy’s sharp breath in. 

“Uh, well…” He says, voice low. “I knew someone once who drank way too much...and they weren’t very fun to be around when they were drunk. So…I don’t want to be like them.”

His words are so measured, with a carefulness that’s never been present in anything he’s said to her before. In the moments that follow his explanation, his expression becomes closed off, serious. She doesn’t like it. 

Percy is...this bright presence, in her mind. He’s warmth, and boisterous laughter, and big lopsided smiles that do nothing but make Annabeth’s life better. He’d walked effortlessly through every wall she’d tried to build around herself, right into her heart, lit up her life like the sun. 

But now he’s silent, nervously fiddling with the bottom corner of his pillow and avoiding her eyes. It doesn’t seem right - and although she’s not sure she knows how to fix it, she does know exactly what he would say if things were reversed.

“You know how you’re always saying that you’re here if I want to talk?” She asks, quietly.

His eyes, which had been focused on watching his fingers until she spoke, meet hers wearily. “Yeah.”

“I’m here, too. If you want to talk about it.”

The corner of Percy’s mouth ticks up slightly, for just a second, before his face becomes serious once again. “It’s not a very nice story.”

Annabeth props herself up on one elbow, supporting her head in her hand, and shrugs. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

He thinks on it for a while, searching Annabeth’s face for something and finally nodding and taking in a deep, shaky breath.

“Uh, well...you remember the step dad I told you about? Gabe?” He says, looking up at her hesitantly, and she nods. “He’s kind of the reason I don’t drink.”

He pauses, and Annabeth wonders if that’s all he’s going to tell her, if he’s going to close off completely. Not that she could blame him if he did, not with the labyrinth of everything she still hasn’t told him about her past spreading out underneath her skin. It wouldn’t be fair to push him, so she just waits patiently, hoping he’ll keep talking, but hoping that he’ll understand that he doesn’t have to, either.

“They got married when I was eight.” He says after a minute, “and at the beginning he was okay, like he’d have flowers sent to my mom at work and stuff. But, uh, when they got married he changed. Or I guess we just saw it, finally. I don’t know. But, uh...he was drunk, like all the time. And when he was drunk he was also kind of...violent.”

Annabeth’s heart jumps into her throat. She had a feeling there was more to the story with Percy’s ex-step dad, but...she’d been hoping it wasn’t this. Sally and Percy are probably the sweetest people Annabeth’s ever met, and the idea that someone would take advantage of that...it makes her want to scream, to burn the whole world down.

Percy falls silent, and she watches him for a moment. He’s staring at his fingers again, pulling on a thread on his pillowcase. His face is emotionless, and the sight sends an ache through her heart.

She’s not sure if he wants to be touched, while he talks, but he always reaches for her when she’s upset, so maybe he does. Slowly, giving him time to pull away, she places her hand on top of his, settling the way he’s been nervously fidgeting with his pillowcase. Immediately, he rolls his hand over, squeezing her fingers, and the knot in her chest loosens a little bit. She runs her thumb lightly over his knuckles in response and waits patiently for him to start talking again.

“My mom tried to hide most of it from me,” he continues a few moments later. “She’d try to send me to boarding schools so I would be safe. But...I didn’t make it easy for her. I just...everyday I thought I was going to get a phone call that he’d put her in the hospital or something. I’d get in fights, mouth off to teachers or whatever, get expelled. I thought if I was home I could protect her, I guess. But me being there probably just made it worse.”

She squeezes his hand, imagining Percy as a sweet little kid, getting himself kicked out of school to protect his mom. Knowing him, she’s not surprised to hear it, as much as she wishes she could go back in time and spare him from it, somehow.

“Anyway, summer after seventh grade,” he says, his voice more hollow than she’s ever heard it, “I came home and my mom had this huge bruise on her arm, and I lost it. We got into it, he punched me with a ring on, I had to get six stitches.”

His words hang in the air for a moment. She lifts her hand off of his slowly, gently traces the scar on his cheekbone with one finger, asking the question she can’t bring herself to say out loud.

Percy’s eyes are glassy. He nods. “Mhm.”

Her heart breaks. Annabeth’s childhood may not have been sunshine and rainbows, but her stepmother never gave her a scar. She thinks about the sweet, smiling kid Percy had been in the photo on his bookshelf, and she wants to pull him out of there, wrap him up and protect him. But since she can’t, she settles for lifting her hand off his cheek, running her fingers soothingly through his hair.

Percy’s shoulders relax a little and his eyes flutter shut at her touch, so she continues dragging her fingernails softly along his scalp for a bit, his soft curls sliding between her fingers, before she speaks again.

“Then what happened?”

He keeps his eyes closed when he talks. “When my mom left to take me to the ER she told him if he wasn’t gone when we got back that she’d go to the cops. He had this appliance store but it was mostly a front for some real shady shit, so I guess he realized it wasn’t worth it.”

“Perce -” she starts, but she’s not sure where that sentence is going to end.  _ I’m sorry  _ and  _ that’s horrible _ don’t seem like enough.

“But my mom,” he says quickly, cutting her off, his eyes open and meeting hers intensely. “You have to understand it’s not her fault. Her parents died when she was a kid, and she was taking care of me all by herself, and Gabe made sure she didn’t have any friends or any money of her own, and she hadn’t kept me she wouldn’t have even been in that situation to begin with, but -”

“Hey, hey. I know. Of course it’s not her fault.” Annabeth interrupts, sliding her hand from his hair down along his face, cupping his jaw, tapping her thumb gently on his cheek. “And it’s not your fault either.”

He relaxes a little bit, but he isn’t entirely convinced. “I just...I don’t know. I always feel like I failed her, you know? I should’ve done something sooner, or -”

“No,” Annabeth says firmly. “Absolutely not. All of the blame is his, okay? It’s all on him. You were just a kid, Perce. What were you gonna do?”

“I know, I know. I just...I can’t help it,” he admits, sighing, and he reaches a hand up to swipe at his eyes. “I know there’s nothing I could have done but...it’s hard to believe it, sometimes.”

She slides down onto her side, pulling him closer and hugging him as tightly as she can, their bodies lined up together down to their toes under the covers, his face tucked into the crook of her neck. “Well, I believe enough for both of us, okay?”

He wraps his arms around her waist, tightening his embrace as much as he can with the bump of her stomach between them. She feels him smile slightly against her collarbone. “Okay,” he breathes out. 

They stay like that for a minute, Annabeth drawing soothing circles on Percy’s shoulder blades as he takes several deep breaths against the skin of her shoulder.

“I’m worried I’m gonna fail you, too.” He says, barely breaking the silence with his voice so quiet that Annabeth almost misses it.

She pulls away, just enough to look at his face without completely loosening her arms around him. “What do you mean?”

Percy swallows, his eyes cast downward while he talks. “Like...I’m scared I don’t know how to be a good dad. My mom didn’t meet Paul until I was 15. Before that all I had was Gabe...and he was a piece of shit, you know? What if I turn out like him?”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“You won’t. Percy, look at me,” she says softly, reaching to hold his jaw again and gently pulling his gaze up to meet hers. “I - I’m so sorry that you went through that. And I can’t say that I know how you feel, but I do know one thing - it didn’t make you a bad person.” Percy opens his mouth to protest, but Annabeth cuts him off before he has the chance. “It can’t have, because you’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t -” he starts, looking at her with his eyebrows scrunched together.

“You are,” she says firmly, before he can finish his sentence. “And you’re already a good dad - you come with me to the appointments, you care about the last name, you make sure I have actual food for dinner instead of pop tarts on a regular basis. And I bet if I walk out to the kitchen right now I’ll see two sonograms hanging on your fridge, won’t I?”

He’s quiet for a moment, searching her eyes for a while before he speaks again. “Yeah.”

“That’s a good dad move if I’ve ever seen one.”

His eyebrows are still scrunched together, but he doesn’t try to argue with her.

“Have you ever known me to be wrong?” She asks. 

One side of his mouth tilts up as he looks up at her. “I guess not.”

“Exactly.” She says with finality, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair again. 

He closes his eyes at her touch, but only for a minute. “Annabeth?” He asks as he opens them again.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, you literally do this kind of thing for me all the time,” she tells him honestly, and he gives her a tiny smile in response. She wants to tell him more, about how he makes literally everything better, that if the world was fair only good things would happen to him for the rest of his life, that she loves that he didn’t let himself drown in the darkness of his past. But it’s too much, probably, for tonight. So instead she just whispers, “Get some sleep.”

“Okay,” he breathes out. “But, seriously. Thank you.”

“Any time.” She says, and as she watches him close his eyes and settle further into his pillow, his arm still wrapped around her, she realizes just how much she means it. 

In this moment, tucked up together under his comforter, watching Percy fall asleep, feeling his breathing start to even out as his chest rises and falls under her arm - she feels like an idiot for pushing him away for so long. 

She wants him to come to her with everything, wants to laugh at the antics he gets up to with her friends, wants to hold him on his bad days, wants to keep the comfort he always offers on hers. She wants to let go, to give it a shot, to accept that she’s been in love with him for a long time now, and no amount of fear or logic or excuses will change that.

Because he really is the best person she knows, and she trusts him, and he’s spent the last three months being so patient, and dependable, and kind. Because he makes her feel more safe and loved than anyone else ever has. Because everything is better when he’s around. And she’s still terrified, but she can’t deny that the happiness is starting to outweigh the fear.

For one mad second she imagines herself impulsively waking him up, telling him she’s ready, finally letting her lips meet his again - but it wouldn’t be right. Not with everything he just told her hanging over them. Instead, she leans up and presses a featherlight kiss to his cheekbone, right over his scar, and tells herself it’s a promise. That she’ll stop being so afraid. That she’ll be ready soon.

_ This _ , she thinks as she closes her eyes, settling back onto his pillow, taking in a deep breath of that clean ocean scent he has.  _ This is what I want.  _

She just hopes she can figure out a way to keep it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for making this one so angsty guys
> 
> thanks for reading! let me know what you think in the comments or on tumblr at perca-beths :)


End file.
